My bike has a brand new battery. I charged it over night and today it fired right up. I went for a 20 minute ride (which was great) and now the battery is dead. Need help. Something like the lights must be draining it while im riding. Sorry for being stupid, but what kind of charging systems do these bikes have when they are running???

You didn't make the mistake of leaving on the rear parking light overnight, did you? It's one notch more on the key turning left farther than OFF. Many times this is not noticed when you leave the bike.
Charge up the battery again and see what happens.

No I'm sure the light was off. Plus it was on the charger all night. I took it off the charger, went for a ride, came back home and its dead. I put it back on the charger and in 30 minutes my charger indicated it was fully charged.

You may need to check charging system as it sounds like it's not charging.Is there a proper 55-60w bulb in headlight as one of higher wattage can kill battery.Someone else on here had that problem.

Simple ignorance is not stupidity.

They have an alternator/rectifier/regulator system similar to what other vehicles have......just lower capacity......because the battery also has a lower capacity.

Several things could be happening here. First, I would suspect a loose connection....at EITHER END of the main battery cables.....because it should NOT discharge OR recharge that fast if the battery really IS good.

Second, what kind of a charger were you using ? A "tender" type charger is sometimes NOT good for a new batterys first charge.

Just for curiosity, what kind of battery did you get......and where did you get it ? I think the stock ones are AGM and are kind of pricey. It could be a bad new battery but the odds are against that.

Do you have a multi-meter ? If not, do you know anybody who does ?
Depending on where you bought the battery, "they" might check it out for you, no charge, so to speak !! (but you would need to get the whole bike to them)

Funny you mention the headlight. It is the factory bulb but when I got the bike all the wires inside the headlight had been cut. I spliced all the wires back together. Must be headlight related

I would double check all your splices again as most main wires run through the headlight.All splices should be soldered and shrink-wrapped.

If you had a short in the headlight bucket, you probably would have blown a fuse.
You may have wired up something wrong that is always drawing juice and drained the battery even though the key is OFF. You have to check your wiring against the wiring diagram.
And after you fully charge it up again with a 2 amp charger,. bring it back to the dealer you bought it from and get it load tested, that is the only way to see if it is any good.
You can easily test the charging system of the bike by getting it started (jump it from another 12V battery, like from a NON-RUNNING car) and measure the voltage at the battery terminals with a voltmeter at about 3000 rpms.

I will check all the connections tomorrow.
The charger is a full charger that does both 12V and 6V. I charged it on 12V and the 2 amp setting.
As far as the battery, it was purchased at Wal-Mart by the guy I bought it from a week before buying it.

As far as the battery, it was purchased at Wal-Mart by the guy I bought it from a week before buying it.[/quote]

OK, how about the NEXT one that you have now......also a replacement from Wal-Mart ??
Does it have removable caps where you can add water ??

AND.....now that it has been determined that the first new battery was in fact bad.......you should not ASSume that there is yet another problem, like in the wiring in the headlight. Let's see how the second new battery performs first.

Could be that the previous owner bought the new battery and did not charge it properly and it failed prematurely. Hope the replacement corrects the situation.

Just FYI.... I've noticed recently that running my bright light all the time drains my battery terribly. I have just adapted by only switching to bright when I need to do so. Since I've been doing this, I haven't had a single problem with a weak battery.

Any chance there is a bulb with a higher wattage demand on high beam. Could be a 100 watt high beam which would make the electrical system very marginal at best.

It is a 55/60W bulb. I just rode down to Advanced Auto and they checked my battery. According to their test, the battery is fine.

I noticed there is a plug that goes to nothing inside my headlight housing. This must not be normal is it?
Here it is:

When you look in the headlight, do you see a small 5w "parking light" bulb. I'm not sure if the American GZs have them, like the European version. If there's no small bulb, then the connector is likely for that. Manufacturers seem to like a standard wiring loom that contains the wiring for anything required around the world. Like, our bikes don't have the marker lights in the front indicator housings, but the wiring's there.

Could it be a bad Stator??? How can I test for that?

You are taking wild guesses again. That is BAD; it will get you into worse trouble.

[Edit] Looks like **I** took a wrong turn somewhere so let's start over.

Exactly what are the symptoms when it fails ??
Is that still the same after charging overnight ??
It is possible that your main cables just have a loose connection.....or the main fuse blew.....or that the battery really IS bad, even though it tests good.

You REALLY need a meter to go any farther......especially before you start talking about stators. They are not a high failure item in the GZ.

Ya im tired of wild guesses too. I dont have a meter, but monday after work i am going to drive over to the see a mechanic and just have him take a look at it. I did checked the cables and the fuses and they appear fine.

First off, this site is great!! I have benefitted greatly from all the discussions posted here and been able to fix any issues I have run across with my gz.

nhcop,
I had the same issue a year ago with my 04 gz. Seeing you are having the same symptoms with your bike prompted me to register. Start on pg. 168 of the service manual (avail on this site) for some guidance. Your Rectifier is probably shot and your battery is not getting any juice from the stator. The stator puts out around 60 Volts AC and the recitifier (looks like a metal block with fins) located on the left side of the bike changes the 60 VAC to around 13.5 DC. If you start your bike up and unhook the two wire connector comming of the rectifier you should read at least 13.5 volts. If it says -13.5 volts no big deal, just swap your meter leads around. I was able to pick up a rectifier on e-bay for about $29 + Shipping. A dealer wants over $100.00. I hope this helps you out.

That is a good summary of a "not charging" condition......but we don't KNOW yet if that is his problem or not. Some of the information he has provided would tend to indicate that the problem is much more basic than that.

More tests are needed.

I did notice that the bolts holding on the rectifier were loose when I bought it. I tightened them up not thinking much of it. Makes me wonder??

got a multimeter today. battery was fully charged and it was sitting at around 12.17 Volts Fired up the bike and it jumped to 13.6 Volts. Guess this means the charging system is working..... Now I guess i need to run it till it dies again and check the battery with the meter..

Yes,It's charging fine.Starting to look like you had a loose connection that got moved or tightened while you were checking things.

Your "good" battery may NOT be.
Nominal no-load voltage is 12.6 V.
I've seen good ones read as low as 12.4 but never that low.
Might be OK but it would make me a little nervous.

Might want to measure the resting voltage of your car, truck, etc. ......just to see if the meter might be reading a bit low.

Your problem is your battery, like most of us have been telling you all along. Your charging system works fine as you simply found out.
Looking for more exotic fixes like stators and rectifiers etc, which are very rare to fail, will get you into trouble.

Did you get the battery new, or was it "new" when you got the bike? You don't know how the PO first charged it, if ever, when he got the battery.
I don't care how new it is - charge it again, take it to a battery shop and have it load tested. That is the only way to see if it is good. Resting at 12.17V does not represent a full charge, it should be 12.6-12.8 V at least. If I recollect correctly, the starter draws about 80 amps, and you are marginal at 12V to turn it over more than a few times.
If you get a new one, after you charge it and install it, put those little jumper lead plugs permanently attached to the battery terminals to make it easy to connect the charger/tender without having to take off the side cover each time.
The best way to maintain your battery is to ride the bike on a regular basis.