Battery required for start?

herbie2334 · Post by **herbie2334** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:24 pm

I have a question. I purchased a 1967 Honda CL77 from a guy who said it was used by a farmer who removed all of the electrical components. I recently installed new Keihn carbs on it (Amal 626 replacements) and put in new plugs. Will I need a battery for this to run? I won't be running any electrical and I am guessing it should start up just like any old dirtbike which didn't have a battery. I am still in the troubleshooting stage, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

sotxbill · Post by **sotxbill** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:34 am

Yes it will need a charged battery to fire of the points and plugs.. These bikes do not have a magnetos to run the ignition. They are designed to run off of the battery and have a very minimal charging system to keep the battery barely charged. you can jump it off a car battery for testing purposes and do keep a battery on it while running as the charging system requires the battery to be present or it will spike up to 60 volts.

With that said, some have converted it over to the capacitor system with some success to eliminate the battery, but I have not expierenced it myself.

There are several good articles here about improving the charging system that you may look at.

Cl77 batteries are hard to find, I buy mine off ebay.. I have also gotten the small 12 volt seal battery from auto zone and forced it into one of my cl's with success. Its a bit smaller than the original battery but a tad wider and has to be really pushed down hard to get it to fit. I used a file to remove the burrs off the sides of the battery case and got it to fit.

Hope this helps....

herbie2334 · Post by **herbie2334** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:37 pm

Thanks for the help. I will cross my fingers and hope it fires up. One of my issues is that there are no wires for a battery under the seat, but I am guessing maybe they were removed. Which makes me wonder if the PO converted the system. I will have to check it out.

davomoto · Post by **davomoto** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:42 pm

Herbie, I run a couple of my 305s with no battery. I use a computer grade capacitor, search it on this forum, in place of a battery, and they run great!

davomoto