Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Has anyone tried the 6 volt lithium ion battery for there older bmw. I have a 67 r60/2. Also what life expectancy should I get out of a regular 6 volt lead acid type. I seem to get about 3 years out of them.

thanks Kurt

The first lead-acid battery after I got my R69S lasted about 12 years. I ended up changing it because I couldn't keep the "fuzz" off of the terminals...it would each up the bolts and it became harder and harder to remove them. I changed to a spade-terminal maintenance free battery from Vech. I had to create a small box transition from the harness ring terminals to a small trailer pigtail wires that pushed on to the spade battery terminals.

The battery on the /2 is there strictly to provide power for the lights when the engine revs are low enough that the generator is not outputting enough. Once running down the road, the generator takes over. With proper care, a lead-acid battery should last a long time.

Can't say as I've heard people consider using a lithium ion battery. I don't know how compatible the charging profile of the bike is with what the battery needs.

I’ve had a lithium battery on my 68 R69US for years with zero issues. It never needs charged, weighs almost nothing and works great. Only drawback is cost.

Slash2 -

I suspect that the battery is much smaller. What have you done to get it to fit on the battery tray and look decent?

Not sure to understand the advantage of putting a lithium battery on a /2
One of the advantage of lithium is its great crank power, useless on our bikes.
A gel type battery for alarm system will last for years, will never leak, will accept deep discharge, will keep its charge during Winter, is less affected by charging voltage variation from our old type regulator (electronic ones do a better job) and costs nothing. I bought mine on Amazon for my /2 and my Honda CT110 (both are 6 volts) and despite being neglicted for a while, never failed.

Would you mind sharing what brand you bought from Amazon?

I believe all the batteries may come from same manufacturer. I boutght mine on Amazon.ca but just make a search for 6 volts gel battery on Amazon.com and pick the one you like, price and dimension wise. Mine is a 6.5 amp but I think you can go up to 8 amp and it will still fit in the battery box.

Hi
I have been using a 6 volt Shorai lithium ion battery in my 1961 R 69S for 2 years with no problems . It is very small and it fits inside a regular lead acid battery case .I only ride during daylight hours and I have never needed to charge it up . I recently bought a Shorai charger with a 6 volt lead for it . I hooked it up , it has a special charging port and it was fully charged in about 10 minutes . The Charger and 6 volt lead was about $ A 177.00 including shipping . If you go this way in Australia there is not a lot of choice buying 6 volt lithium ion batteries .i have several 12 volt lithium ion batteries in my race bikes . Battery chargers for 12 volt lithium ion batteries are a lot cheaper .It would appear that with the amount of riding I do the battery is being charged up enough . I ride about 200 miles a month . Hope this is of some help .

I understand that the Shorai is giving you satisfaction (we have mitigated review here up north but lithium batteries do not like cold temperature). My point is that your 177 USD Shorai will not give you anything more than a 15 USD gel battery designed for alarm system. Plus the gel will have no risk of over-charging (with results of fire/explosion on some technology of lithium) and does not need a specific charger which is a extra saving.
If you have a motorbike with an electric starter, things are of course completely different: a lithium batt can be extremely compact and powerful to start big engines. The expected life really depends of input voltage and temperature.