my nightster has 2000 miles on it. just went out to take it for a nighttime spin, and i turn the key and its completely 100% dead. not a single light will turn on. so i hook the battery up to my car and let it charge. i try to start it periodically for 30 minutes with no success. this especially sucks because i was going to take it on a long cruise this weekend and it kind of ruins my plans.

any ideas why it wont start???

 

test the battery before you charge it. Jumping it from the car is not the best thing to do for the battery. It may not be the battery, it may be an ignition switch problem or something else. Maybe the ground has come loose.

 

I'm no HD mechanic, but with 4 wheels, the battery could be completely shot... would lead me to believe the same here

 

I'm going to guess it's the main fuse or the ground is loose. Even a dead battery will light up the speedo or the oil light. If the battery is bad the lights will go out when you bump the starter. If they go out and don't come back on, it's probably the ground.

I'm just guessing though, because I'm not looking at the bike.

 

how would you recommend i check the fuse and the ground to see if they are hooked up? when i had it hooked up to my car (i didnt start the car, just hooked them up) it had enough juice to light everything up. i just got home from running some errands, and the battery is back to dead now.

im going to get my tender tomorrow and try leaving it tending overnight to see if that does anything.

 

I've jumped my bike with a running car... Without it running it wasn't enough, with it running it was good.

Perhaps you accidentally left the ignition in the accessory position. Not running position but accessory. I've heard of a few people doing that. The key can be removed and all that.

The fuse you just pull and actually look at the metal arc inside. It wont be that if your bike ran at all. The battery connection will literally be a loose bolt. pull the battery out and tighten up connections. It may look tight, but still be too loose for a good connection.

 

If the lights came on when you connected the jumper cables, you probably left the key on. It may take a while for the tender to charge the battery as they don't make much current. They are more for maintaining a charge than building one.

 

Check,clean,grease all relays,fuses,battery connections,sounds like something simple,might even be bad relay,they had quite a few.

 

Check the fuses first, easiest thing to do. then check the battery cables, I'd almost bet you it's a cable being loose. I could be wrong though.

 

ok so i got a battery charger....had it hooked up to that for about 20 minutes and it started right up. took off the charger and it died immediatly. im gonna leave the charger on it for a few hours and try again to see if my battery will hold the charge. all the fuses seemed fine, and the bolts nice and tight. i dont think i left it in the accesory position but if i did this could be why.

will update in a few hours when i know.

thanks so far for the input fellas