Got up to 55 degrees today, figured I'd take the bike out. Turned on ignition, bike showed about 9V on the gauge. Hmmm...hadn't ridden it for a while, and it's been cold as heck in my garage (Indiana, it gets down to below 0 every once in a while). Fired up after a 3 second fight. Ran it for 3 minutes or so, turned it off because I had to run in the house. Came out 5 minutes later, wouldn't start. CLICK-CLICK-CLICK, just like a machine gun. Great. Borrow neighbor's quick charger, after an hour, it shows 10V, starts, and climbs to 14V. Turned off, and now it restarts easily.

So, to prevent this from happening again on my 9 MONTH OLD BATTERY, I'm going to get a tender. Was looking at the service manual, which leads to me to two questions:

1. For those of you using the quick disconnect setup, are you putting the negative connection on the chassis, or the negative post on the battery for the permanent connection? Service manual says if the battery is in the bike, to connect to the chassis when charging. Next door neighbor connects his straight to the negative battery terminal without problems for years (he says).

2. Harley has a tender for $40. Wal-Mart has one for $20. Any benefit to paying double for one marked HD?

 

I've had my connected to the negative terminal for years with no problems either.

 

Mine is directly to the battery. My thought is just take the juice directly to the battery. Why make it travel through the frame or where ever else you would connect too.

Jim

 

Same here, no problem. You want to hook up something cheap to your $20k bike.....that's your business. I've had the same $38 Battery Tender Plus for the last six years, on 3 bikes.

 

I have three of the $20 Wal-Mart battery maintainers, and they are all directly connected to the pos and neg posts on the batteries. I use them on my SG, my GTO and the wife's Firebird. All work fine for 3+ years without issue.

 

Dealer put mine directly to the battery.

 

Got my leads on the battery terminal. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to pay double for the HD logo on their charger or any other aftermarket acce$$ory that work$ ju$t a$ well for half the money? I'd go with the Walmart charger.

 

I have a Battery Tender Jr. It has worked great. Bought it on E-bay for considerably cheaper than HD. I believe the HD is probably just the Battery Tender brand in an HD wrapper.

 

Sorry, forgot to add it just plugs right in. There is no connecting to the battery. VERY easy.

 

Connect it directly to the terninals of the battery that way you dont have to worry about corrosion at the frame connection. if you connect with the aligator clips the frame connection is probably good. I have one of the Walmart and one Battery Tender (Harley). Both work but the Tender is better quality. PepBoys auto parts has them for 30.00