Welcome to the stranded on the side of the road club. Been there plenty of times. Sometimes, not always, you can get lucky and retighten/wiggle the battery cable ends (both of them at both ends) and you might get it to start.

 

Well.... giving it a parallel to a car battery... If a cell happened to short out (possibly from age and heat and vibration) it could cause the battery to go completely dead AND suck up all the voltage being created by the charging system, thereby leaving nothing to run the engine on..... Replace the battery and then recheck all the connections and charging system. You can't even test a car's charging system properly without a known good battery.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys . .just got back and she's running sweet now.

Ok . .so I did double check all the connection, ground attachments, etc and they're all rock solid. My next door neighbor loaned me his load tester and after charging the battery all night (13.2 volts . .fully charged) it couldn't even hold the slightest load for a single second.

I don't remember my battery tech very well but I think that the 13.2 means the thing had all the cells functional . .but for some reason there were no cold cranking amps?

Anyway, got a new battery, trickle charged it and hopefully I'm good to go. I'm pretty **** about using a battery tender when it's not being ridden and over the winter so I expected to get at least 2-3 years out of the battery. Now I'm wondering if I should just replace it every year as part of winter maint?

Thanks again for all the advice and listening to me vent. Life is good again.

 

When my battery died, I was riding along and the engine would just die for a couple of seconds. It kept quitting for longer and longer, until it rolled completely to a stop. I hit the starter and it fired right up. Went another ten miles before it came to its final stop, a mile-and-a-half from home.

But it was midnight, and it got me all the way through Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo before it died in Napa. I was quite happy, all-in-all.

 

I feel your pain I just spent 3 hours on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck because of a flat tire today. Unfixable on the side of the road.

 

In my 48 yrs in the saddle,and that my memory serves me only been stranded twice,once because of electonic ignition,the other broken primary belt late at night on Stroked Shovelhead

 

Only time actually stranded on the road was had a Broken Drive Belt .. At least it was obvious what was wrong so didn't do a damn thing but call a tow truck ..