My 64 pan converted to 12v keeps killing the battery almost instantly. It rode fine last week. I put 85 miles on it on Friday. No problems at all. I went to start it yesterday and the battery was dead. Put the multimeter on the battery and it showed dead 0. I serviced/charged the battery and put it back in today. All looked fine. Strong lights and everything. After I got it all bolted in I hit the lights again and they were extremely dim. Pulled the battery back out and threw in on the tender. I'm poking and prodding with the meter. For some reason I'm showing resistance on the meter when I hold it on any of the ignition switches terminals and the hot lead. I also show resistance when I do it with the ground lead, no matter the position of the switch. I don't know if that's normal or not. I'm completely lost. I'm not a spark chaser. Can someone tell me where to start?

 

Just as a side note when I put power to the bike my hot lead running to my relay is getting super hot.

 

Did you polarize the Generator when you reconnected the battery? Is it charging? Do you have a mechanical or solid state regulator? It sounds like you are just running on battery power.

 

It was charging when I rode on Friday. Its a brand new mechanical regulator. I did not depolarize the generator when I reconnected the battery. Just to get into a bit more detail. The battery is dying just sitting in the bike hooked up. No switches being turned or anything. If I wire the battery uo and let it sit for 20 minutes without touching the bike, it will be dead.

 

Repolarize*

 

remove the ground cable - connect your test Light one end of it ( Not a volt meter ) in between the cable end Thats bolted to the frame /// than attach the other end the frame of the bike however < so the test light becomes the ground -- if its lit with the Key off - start disconnecting stuff // when goes off that is the short that is draining the battery --

first place i would look is the voltage regulator / if the diode trigger < electronic regulator OR Box type regulators contact points have corroded they tend to stick in the on posision and it keeps the regulator looking for 12 volts - i hope you get what i wrote - johnjzjz

 

Up* also. Its kinda hard to explain I guess. If I hook the battery up the hot lead starts getting really hot. By the time I finish installing the battery, its dead before I can try to start it.

 

That does make sense john. Basically replace the ground lead with a test light?

 

Any time you connect a battery you must polarize the generator by flashing the bat and gen terminals on the regulator. From your description it does sound like you have a short somewhere. I think Johnjz has the right idea.

 

Yep what he said
John when the voltage regulator sticks like that is that when the generator tries to run like a motor?



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