| Author | Message | ||
     Kurbennett |
Ok, bike ran fine Friday, went to start her Saturday for a ride and no joy. Got a little relay chatter, fuel pump prime, no crank. Checked cables seemed ok, battery when removed from the bike passed the charger self test and showed fully charged after a few minutes. Went ahead and cleaned the terminals, cleaned and tightened the two underseat grounds with star washers. Put it all back together and still nothing. No lights, horn, guages, one of the relays does a quick click and then silence. At a loss here, any ideas would greatly be appreciated. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I'd still tend to think the battery's bad. Take it to your dealer or local auto parts store and have them do a load test on it. | ||
| Etennuly |
If the battery passed an actual load test I would start looking for ground issues. Loosen clean and reinstall any ground wires you find. Does yours have washers under the battery bolts? If you have just the cable ends there it can be a problem. The bolts were a few thousandths too long, although they would seem tight, they would still loose connection. They must be tight enough that you cannot force the cables to move by hand. Look for any black arcing marks under the cable ends. | ||
| Kurbennett |
Roger that, I put washers under them today when putting it all back together. I hate to think it is the battery, I just bought it last year. Will pull it out and take it to autozone. Will let you all know what I find out. | ||
| Ronmold |
Did the headlight come on? | ||
| Kurbennett |
No lights. | ||
| Idaho_buelly |
I'd put a meter on the battery and at the same time try to start it to see what it reads??. | ||
| Jlnance |
I hate to think it is the battery That is one of the easier things to fix... If the battery is good, it may just be dead, in which case the question would be why. The charging system on these bikes is known to fail occasionally, so that could be it. I assume the people who checked to see if it was good, checked to see if it was charged before they tested it? Or did they charge it first? But anyway, if the battery is charged, and the lights don't come on, you have a bad connection somewhere, and it's close to the battery (because it's common to both the lights and the starer.) If the battery isn't charged, the question becomes is the bike charging it. You can check this by measuring the batter voltage while the bike is running. It should be around 14 volts. If it isn't, there is a problem with the charging system. There is a '77 connector which melts and takes out the charging system when it does. There is an updated connector which fixes that problem. These bikes also tend to loose stators. There is a procedure in the service manual for checking that. Either of those problems tends to blow up the voltage regulator, so you probably need a new one of those (assuming again that the bike isn't charging.) | ||
| Reepicheep |
Just for clarity, most chargers just measure voltage of the battery. Better then nothing, but not a true measure of what the battery needs to do. An auto parts store should be able to do a load test of the battery, which measures how much current the battery can deliver with significant voltage. It's the difference between a dremel tool spinning at 1000 RPM, and a truck tire spinning at 1000 RPM. | ||
| Kurbennett |
Took the battery down to Autozone this evening, they said they could charge it but their equipment could not load test a motorcycle battery. I took it back home, put it back in the bike, and ran jumper cables to the car. Turned the key and had light and gauges. So based on this is it safe to assume the battery is toast? | ||
| Ronmold |
Does sound like the battery, did you start it w/ the jumper cables? If you keep the jumper cables on for 5 min or so w/ the car running and then remove them the battery should have enough juice to crank it over. If not then the battery is just not holding a charge. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Hmmmm... I gotta think about home brew load testers. I bet, with sufficient math, somebody could work out a particular gauge and length of wire that ought to be melted in X number of seconds when jumped across two battery terminals. If nobody else does it, somebody remind me to work this out after I finish my current project (which is even cooler!  ). | ||
| Etennuly |
Load testing for a nearly unequipped home testing procedure is simple actually. If you have a 12V DC volt meter, hook it to the battery. Fully charged it should read 12.6V to 12.8V, or there about. Turn on the key, turn on the kill switch and watch the meter as you push the starter switch. That load should not drop below 9.0V to 9.2V for just a second and recover a bit while cranking. If it drops to lesser numbers you have a bad connection to your meter or a weak/dead battery. It must be fully charged before testing. If you don't have a volt meter that I'm sure you can find for $8.00, you should be taking the bike to a shop for testing. | ||
| Kurbennett |
Thanks for the help on this. Never would have believed it was the battery. Stopped in at the local HD dealer and picked up another on the way home. The bike fired right up. Am going to take a look at the 77 connector this weekend. I have the upgrade connector, so may just put it on. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Are you using washers on your battery terminal bolts? Or are you using the bolts that came with your new battery? We've seen cases where the bolts are too long for the terminals, causing the cables not to be tight (and I'd be curious if you didn't just have a loose battery cable in the first place). I run a star washer, then my heated gear pigtail, then a star washer, then my aux light wire, then a star washer, then the main battery cable, then a star washer, then the bolt. On each terminal. It adds the thickness needed AND locks everything in place so they don't work loose. '06 Uly, factory battery. Kuryakyn voltmeter installed on the GPS mount shows steady status (as opposed to discharge) even at idle, with heated grips, jacket, and gloves going. If I go to high beam, triggering / adding the aux lights, it goes into a *slight* discharge until I bring it up to 1200rpm or so. In cold weather (below 40) it lives on a tender every night, I have 'em hanging from the garage rafters. Park, plug, sleep. Fires right up, every time Also, you should NEVER connect a motorcycle to a running car with jumper cables. Automotive charging systems put too many amps into the system for the bike to handle, and you can cook stuff (which gets expensive, and smells really really bad). Just a car battery by itself has more than enough reserve capacity to start a motorcycle. If you jump it and get it running, unhook it from the car and RIDE IT. Our bikes don't charge at idle, they put out enough juice to run on (hence my steady status at idle, showing 12v or so) but not enough to put back into the battery. | ||
| Kurbennett |
I had the two washers for each cable. When it would not start I pulled the battery out, cleaned cables and terminals as well as put the star washers on the two grounds. Didnt start when I put it all back together. I had been expieriencing the hesitation when the start button was pushed, which is why I replaced the battery last year, that didnt cure the issue so I figured it was normal. With the new battery and the ground cleaning and star washers the bike turns over quick. | ||
| Etennuly |
Excellent, now you just gotta get it out and ride it like you stole it!  |
