got new battery today installed it & the bike fired right up. checked for parasitic load none detected. the bike is now on a battery tender life is good once again. ready to ride only if spring would arrive it's in the 20's now with rain/snow...
1983 kawasaki kz440 starting problem
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an update to this thread. strange the replacement scorpion agm battery failed just like the other one. under a year old & always on a battery tender. everything checks out the charging system, no parasitic load on the battery, tender is like new, i assume these scoprion batteries are junk?
i was thinking about going back to the OEM design flooded YUASA battery. i owned Kawasaki's all my life with these batteries & they never failed me & offered me long life in all the bikes. i seen these advertised that they were made in the USA but the ones for my bike seem to be made in Tawain. i'm still looking around for these but i question the build quality of these batteries if their all made in Tawain seeing the Scorpion is made in China & obvious crap...
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Yuasa makes all of Walmart's batteries. i don't know if they are of the same quality, but I've had one in my '83 GS750ES for 4 years now. I remove it, bring it inside, and keep it on a 1.8 amp (corrected from volts) battery tender. You do have to check the fluid as it does evaporate. The occasional top up with distilled water is all you need to keep track of. The voltage stays the same. but it evaporates, when you add distilled water, it drops, but the tender brings the battery right back up to snuff in a half day or so, depending how dry you let it get. I have no sulfation on this old battery. It reads all balls up on the specific gravity tester. 
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Oops!! Yes, 1.8 amps. Fixed it. 😬
this thing is driving me crazy. after a while on a tender with the light green to show it's maintaining the battery yesterday cranked about 3 seconds & then just died. after that the tender status light turned red which means it's charging. this morning i cranked the bike with the choke off so it doesn't fire up just to check the battery power & it turned over like new. i cranked it for about 15 seconds straight waited & then again. no power loss at all. can a battery on a tender a while still lose cranking power? it doesn't make any sense to do so as that's the whole purpose of a tender. the same battery before this one lasted 3 years on a small solar panel in the window through nonuse & always worked fine until early this march when it died & i bought the battery then i got in the bike now. they are both scorpion agm batteries, but for whatever reason the old battery was 180 cca & this one 165cca with the same part number. strange. maybe i need a bigger battery?
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Maybe you need a newer battery tender and charger.
Copied with thanks from Federal Batteries website:
"Charging Considerations for AGM Batteries
Different chargers have different capabilities - Although under normal conditions most 12-volt automatic battery chargers will work on an AGM battery, the battery will only charge to about 80 percent of its full capacity. Many newer battery chargers have settings specifically for AGM batteries. Remember the technology of an AGM battery is not the same as a gel battery, which has its own charging requirements. If the charger offers different modes, select the correct one for your battery. Using the gel setting to charge an AGM battery will not fully charge and over time will actually damage your AGM battery."
Copied with thanks from Federal Batteries website:
"Charging Considerations for AGM Batteries
Different chargers have different capabilities - Although under normal conditions most 12-volt automatic battery chargers will work on an AGM battery, the battery will only charge to about 80 percent of its full capacity. Many newer battery chargers have settings specifically for AGM batteries. Remember the technology of an AGM battery is not the same as a gel battery, which has its own charging requirements. If the charger offers different modes, select the correct one for your battery. Using the gel setting to charge an AGM battery will not fully charge and over time will actually damage your AGM battery."
i just looked at my battery tender in the garage now. it looks like this new one: Battery Tender Plus | 1.25A Battery Charger | Battery Mart neither charger has any switch on them for agm or conventional batteries, ect just 2 status lights red for charge green for maintenance charge. the new sales brochure does state the new tender is for agm & other 12 volt batteries, but since mine is so old (2004) i don't have any brochure with it so i don't know if it's compatible for agm. now i'm confused if i should bite the bullet & buy the new one or keep mine...
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I would go back to the old style batteries. You can check each cell with a Specific Gravity Tester (little eyedropper thing with Balls that tell you how each cell is doing). They don't cost much. That's what these bikes came with, and if taken care of, so far I have 4 years out of the 3 I have for my GS750ES and my Kawi ZZR1200. Using distilled water to top them off is absolutely necessary to prevent sulfation.
here's what battery tender had to say about my question if the old tender is compatible with agm batteries:
The way to tell if the Battery Tender is designed for AGM batteries would be to plug it into electricity without connecting it to your battery. The red light should flash.
If the red light flashes then it is designed for lead acid, AGM and gel type batteries.
It has a 4 step microprocessor.
Thank you for contacting Deltran.
The way to tell if the Battery Tender is designed for AGM batteries would be to plug it into electricity without connecting it to your battery. The red light should flash.
If the red light flashes then it is designed for lead acid, AGM and gel type batteries.
It has a 4 step microprocessor.
Thank you for contacting Deltran.
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