Jumped on her this morning and she was dead.....
I grabbed the ignition switch so quick I cant remember if I left it on all night and thats why she was dead.....

Hooked up trickle charger and normally steady yellow lite on charger was blinking yellow,,,,,???

Went home 5 hours later and green nutral light would come on and a dim gauge face but nothing else....no headlight, no fuel pump...no nothing.....

I don't think the trickle can do this job of charging her back up.......

I was going to go home and put a regular 6 amp charger on the bike.....
is that OK??

 

Pull maxi fuse. Remove battery and have it charged and load tested. If you need a new one try East Penn Deka Co (google) as they make all the HD batteries. Call them and find a local distributor. Mine was $40 cheaper than the dealer. If you don't have a tender on the bike go on Amazon and find the Deltran 12v motorcycle tender. It is the same as the HD one for 1/2 the price. It will come with a pigtail you can wire ot the battery so you can plug in every night and double the life of your battery.

 

6 amp charge should be ok. Just to be safe, disconnect the bike leads from the battery while charging. Always - positive connection on first/off last rule, when charging or hooking/unhooking a battery. The lower the amp charge, the better for the battery. I have a 2/10/50 amp charger. When I have a low battery, I charge at 2 amp overnight. Never put the battery on the ground or concrete floor. Leave it in the vehicle or put it on a wood shelf.

 

Thanks guys..it was a shorted cell that made the battery dead.

It was still a little under warrenty BUT I walked in with it and they said I had to bring the bike in....

I said the bike is in my garage which is down a steep hill and there was no way I was going to get the bike there......hence...no warrenty...

$140.00 later........I'm good again!

Ya just cant make this stuff up.....
Thanks again....

 

Gliden take the bike in now and ask them to check the charging system under the warranty then see if they will make good on the battery. They just wanted to be sure it was going on a bike under warranty (thinking positive here) or they suck.

 

Good thinking Sarge...

Thanks

 

I'm wondering if I experienced the same shorted cell problem from this past Sunday. Battery was only a few months old and on battery tender when not in use. Was out riding for a few hours and stopped for a few minutes at a place and went to start and an all black out. Got the bike home and checked all that I could with a meter. Switch off 12.7VDC. Turn switch on and .015VDC. Looked everywhere for possible short or loose connectors after checking all fuses. Totally stumped. Had to give up and trailer to dealer yesterday. Waiting for the results.

 

Update:
In a nut shell....not a shorted Cell.....
I had a draw on the bike and it drained the battery overnight to 5 volts.

Normal sears charger 6-8 amp...just cycled and couldnt revive the battery and it looked to me as if there was a shorted cell. There wasnt.

HD has this $1000 battery tester that said my battery had 5 volts and 8 amps left in it but that it COULD be revived.....

They hooked it to their stuff overnight and the battery came back to life with 395 Cold Cranking amps and 13.2 volts....we let it sit overnight and load tested it and she is as good as new.

So I made an "assumption" that I had a shorted cell but these new batteries can be brought back to life with whatever charging system HD has. It is the same battery cause I painted my positive terminal and yup it's the same battery.....

Now I need to find the current draw on the bike.

 

FWIW, have used a plain old 10A charger on my battery many times, the battery is still the original one in my '01'.