Gel batteries any good?

[mashman]

Don't forget to do your linkage dogbones & swingarm needle bearings . Just done mine & all looked good after 53,000k's pulled them all out & cleaned them then repacked with Bellray waterproof grease plus checked the side link plates for wear . Have you replaced your plates with the stronger units for the 04 onwards from AF1 ?

Aye, i've had the new plates on for a couple of years now, well, since people started crashing anyway. The greasing is on the list. Only did it about 6k ago, but figure it's worth doing them whilst she's parked up for maintenance, just hope i don't drop any...

[mashman]

My battery is mounted at an angle - it's normal for the VFR due to lack of clearance. It's an AGM one - currently a 'MotoBatt' from Cycletreads, and blardy good value. Cost me less than the last crappy Koyo battery, and it's got higher CCAs and amp-hours than the standard Yuasa one.
If you haven't got a battery yet, check out Cycletreads.

Damn you man, you've gone and made me all confused again...

[mashman]

Wellllll the maintenance was all done. Bought myself a battery over the weekend, AGM no less for 50 bucks... forks are back in, still daylight left yesterday evening, gettin twitchy, excited at the prospect of thumbing the starter with absolutely anywhere to go... Fuckin battery doesn't fit... Ok, so it's a battery that's a general battery, replacing a few models etc... Pretty much any spec info I checked pointed to this battery being a simple fit... It fits straight into the space where the old battery was, but that's about it... seems like the spec is lies lies and damned lies, or at the very least, muchos misleading.

Problems are as follows:

My battery retainer (dunno it's proper name, the bit that holds the battery in place) has a tip over sensor on it. Unfortunately this battery, when viewed from the top, is a pretty symetrical plus symbol, albeit more rectangle along the width, whereas the Yuasa that it's replacing has the top of the plus sign removed so that the battery retainer can function. You can reverse the retainer, but the tip over sensor sits at a slightly different angle... something that i'm not comfortable with.

The spades on the wiring loom are too large for the space left for connecting the leads. Again, i could cut the wiring harness and change the spades, but again, i'm just not comfotable doing that either. Even with the spades slightly bent (was just checking) the screw still will not allow attachment to the battery.

All of the above is a bit of an assumption as these batteries are generic... but i'm starting to wonder if there are slightly different configurations of this battery i.e. with the top of the plus ripped off for an Aprilia... failing that, looks like i'll have to go back to the original battery...

Oh yeah, and no ride until then... grrrrrrrrr