Fresh battery installed! Next morning Completely dead. Left nothing on! Do I have a bad ground? What causes draw on a battery when bikes just sitting??

 

Typically a bad ground won't cause a drain like that. There's really only two things that would cause it.....well three but the battery is new and the chances of it being bad is little to none.

One reason would be that you have some circuit that is remaining open after the bike is off. Which is not likely since you said no lights were left on nor did you see any lights.

The second reason for the dead battery would be that the new batter did not have a proper charge befor putting it on the bike. Did you charge the battery prior to installing it and if so what type charger did you use? Was it a trickle charger or an actual charger.

 

I Added the acid as directed and charged it for 10 hrs!! But i did use a trickle charger!!! Could that be the issue??

 

Do this just to see. Pull the battery out (I know its a pain). Check the acid levels again just make sure they didn't drop from over spill or evaporation. If they are okay, then if you have a normal battery charger (usually a 2 amp or higher) hook it up to it and let it charge. Keep it off the bike over night. Then check it with a volt meter if you have one to see what charge the battery has. If its 14-12.5 volts your good.

Then put it back on the charger to get it back to a full charge. Then put it back on the bike, hook it up, and let it sit for a couple of hours (like 5 or 6) and then check it again with a voltmeter and see again what the charge is. If the battery reads between 14-12.5 then your okay. If its dropped way below that then there is another problem.

I would place a bet though it was just because of the trickle charger, most trickle chargers are only 1.5 amps. If you use a normal charger it will likely be okay. Make sure that if you hook it up to a normal charger to set it at its lowest setting either 2 or 12 amp. 2 would be the preferred as 12 is quite large for our batteries. Don't ever go over a 12 amp setting!

 

I would say no about the trickle charger being the problem. 10 hours is generally enough to get mine from dead to full charge. I have to ask though, how do you know it's dead? Just because it won't start, or did you check it with a meter? If you checked it with a meter, disconnect it from the bike, recharge, let it sit over night, and re-check with the meter.That should eliminate the batt. and charger as a problem. If the batt checks out, check for switches that may have shorted, starting with the ignition switch.

However,

If you didn't check with a meter, do it. If it reads good, start looking for an open circuit (bad ground, open circuit breaker, broken or freyed cables, etc.)

Update us on progress often. I would also say that if you havn't done it in the past, sketch your own version of how the bike is wired. It will make tracing the circuits much easier and help you become more familier with your machine.

Here is the one I made for my bike.

Rich
(EDIT: I see that Randy types faster than me)
[IMG]local://upfiles/5737/479FF7F8D2954563ABA63FC3E28BF56A.jpg[/IMG]

 

Gonna re-charge and check with meter and keep you posted!! While pulling things apart I have noticed frayed wires and loose grounds!! These sorts of things will drain the battery??

 

Here are some pics of the beautiful wiring job by the prior owner!

[IMG]local://upfiles/60513/A805773862674704ADA459D1B3478817.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/60513/BDF4BFC716DB493F9B24AB7C315FA6D2.jpg[/IMG]

 

I see you are running the mechanical regulator. If the battery checks out okay off of the bike (with a meter like Pyro says) it could be the points in the regulator. I had this problem many years ago. Drove me nuts. I have a solid state on the bike now. I am much happier.

 

That actually looks pretty good compared to what mine looked like! When I picked mine up and brought it home first thing I noticed was the wiring. On mine he would come off a switch or breaker using 12 or 16 guage wire and then for no apparent reason have a splice up to 8 guage wire and then splice it back again with 12 or 16 guage. Most of it was just twisted together with electrical tape wrapped around it. Anyone who has any wiring experience knows to never use electrical wire on a splice and obviously don't change wire size half way through the run. Took me a long time to rewire that bike. I bought a factory harness cut all the ends off of it and then put heat shrink splices on it so they would be water tight. I may eventually re-wire it going through the inside of the frame so you can't see any wires at all.

 

If you have a test light you can remove the positive batt cable and hook up the light between the cable and positive batt post. If it lights up with everything off you have a current draw off something. Most likely the voltage regulator or a bad ignition switch.