5 years on a battery? Not bad!

 

The battery is 5 years old, you got your monies worth, I would just replace it in this case before wasting time troubleshooting anything else. Odds are 99 to 1 that's the problem.

I would get the battery from your HD dealer. The new HD batteries are a sealed AGM construction that is far better than the sealed lead acid batteries from just a few years ago, and what is still sold by most second source places like Drag Specialties.

 

Old Indian saying " Now days carry jumper cables dumbass "

 

I tried to start my 08 nightster with the roll down the hill method last summer, after leaving my lights on for an extended time. With a completely dead battery it will not work. If u do not hear the injectors spray when u turrn the key on, no fuel is getting into the motor. I must have walked the bike back up the hill seven times before i said F*&$ that ,felt like a ran a marathon so i feel your pain. I guess i would rather walk a harley than ride a rice rocket!

 

Maybe on your luggage laden bagger.

 

Why???? If you fire a car, take the battery out and it will run on the available juice from the alternator providing a load isn't introduced like the AC, blower motor, head lamps and so on as there is just enough to keep it running. If the bike has enough juice in the battery to maintain ignition and this isn't much, the charging system should be able to maintain ignition once there is enough rpm to trigger it. My sportbike will kick off with barely enough juice to trigger the display but once it fires I better nail that throttle quick and get it above 1,500rpm or it will die pretty soon after.

 

and your alternator will die very shortly after it is not made for stand alone operation... the alternators job is to keep the battery charged not run the cars electrical systems, the only reason an alternator runs is when the battery can't with stand the demand of a specific unit I.E. the blower fan, the A/C compressor, the lights, etc. the alternator(generator for old gear heads) keeps the battery at full charge and picks up the extra load...

so if the battery is completely dead, the reason the car will not start is because it uses the battery solely to kick out the pinion gear on the starter drive and turn the engine over. The alternator has to be spun up to speed to produce any kind of output... it uses electromagnetism to produce it's output. Also if you remove the battery you will loose the Series circuit that every circuit in the vehicle be it car or bike uses to carry power. ground may be to the body of the vehicle at the end of or what looks like the end of the circuit but to complete the path it has to return to the battery, hence the reason the battery is connected to the body of the vehicle right past the post...

 

Uh, no.

The alternator in a car can provide quite enough current to run everything. If it couldn't, there's no way that it could ever charge the battery. If the battery needs X amps to top it off and and the engine/electronics demand Y amps, then the alternator must supply a minimum total of X+Y amps or current will be pulled out of the battery and not put into it. The small alternator in my old 944 puts out 115 amps. That's well in excess of the total draw of all factory accessories when the car is running. Even at idle the alternator produces sufficient amperage to charge the battery.

For my Sportster, the maximum current draw from the stock lights is 16 amps (this assumes high-beam, brake light on, all four directional bulbs simultaneously on highest brightness). Under typical conditions the amp loading from lighting is only going to be around 8.5 amps. The alternator is rated for 32 amps (the non-EFI bikes were rated at 22 amps). A coil does not draw more than 4 amps. From this we can clearly see that, while the alternator is being cut a little close, it is clearly able to supply more power than all of the accessories on a stock bike can draw.

Now, motorcycles are slightly different from cars insofar as they typically do need to be slightly above idle to produce enough current to charge a battery, but if RPM is kept at 1,500 or above the engine will run just fine on the alternator alone.

As for the battery being in series with every other circuit on the car, that's just ridiculous. The battery is connected in parallel to the rest of the car's electrical system. Even the briefest look at any wiring diagram can tell you this. Removing the battery, while inadvisable due to the battery's ability to act as a buffer and reduce ripple in the alternator's current, will not open the circuit for the vehicle's other electronics.

What you describe will only happen if a battery has either sulfated excessively (causing high internal resistance which places an extreme load on the alternator, well beyond normal loading), has a defective cell that has reversed polarity, or has internally shorted (causing the same situation as extreme sulfation).

 

Actually about 3 blocks from my house I was able to jump start it thanks to a nice fellow biker who helped me push it. He checked the battery for a spark and once he saw no spark he told me I might be able to jump start it and it did work but after letting the bike on for a while the battery didnt work anymore. Thank you for your comments and info on the battery.

 

a cars charging system isn't designed to support the demand of the electrical system much the reason when you have a draw on the battery, and the battery is dead because lights or something is left on, the alternator dies because it trys to charge the battery while pulling the extra weight for the cars demands...