I had to replace my battery recently and I cannot get the battery cover on my 09 nightster to stay closed. This has happened before but usually I get it to stay close, anyone have any ideas? I have tried to place the wires in a way that they are not causing the cover to open but I guess there must be something I have missed.

Thx

 

do yourself a favor and drill a hole in the plastic clip... and side a THICK zip tie straight down the hole.... it will hold the cover on... most of those covers are prone to falling off on the HWY... its been to make it stay on there "better"!

i personally do that AND i zip tie the bottom with a LOOSE zip tie to the REAR metal brake line... JUST incase it comes off it will only flopp against my leg...

 

+1 what he said!!

 

The dealer also sells newer style clips to replace the poorly designed ones on the 07-09 models. They are around $10 each and as I have not put them on my bike yet, I did check them out and they seem to be a good design and will hold pretty good. Right now i just have a zip-tie through the hole in the cover and tie it around the frame under the seat.

 

I have also seen the covers and i talked to a few guys and they said that the new clips are NOT worth the $10 to upgrade it can still fall off... i would just fix the cover yourself and save the $10 and KNOW that its done RIGHT by you!

 

The main cause is that most people don't get the cover between the two halves of the clip on the frame. Pull you seat up and away from the clip enough to actually see the side cover going into the gap between the two haves of the clip. There is so much play in the bottom swing point that most of the time when you just swing the cover up and push it in it us just resting on the top of the clips, not between them.

 

Drill the hole and zip tie. There is no need to try and tie it down, just drop the zip tie down in there. It will stay on, and if you need to remove, you just simply pull out the zip tie.

 

+1 to drill and ziptie

Mine was fine but after fitting my Fuelpak I couldn't get it to stay shut so I drilled a small hole and put a ziptie on it. All good now

 

Drill the hole and drop a nail into it, seat will cover the nail and keep it from jumping out, and, unlike ziptie, it's reusable.