Started the morning with good intentions. Headed south on California 1 to the Big Sur coast for nice ride with the wife. Stopped for a scenic view of the ocean...when, click, click....dead...when I went to restart the bike. Tried to push start it, no luck. Ended up getting a flat bed tow back home. 60 miles......local tow ($1200) called the home town boys....$400. AAA no go unless you have the "Plus RV" coverage. I only have the Plus (good for 100 miles...cars/trucks only). And....they take 48 hours to upgrade.

Got home a started the tear down.

1. Battery.....good 12.8V
2. Load test...good
3. bypassed the starter relay.....good
4. Cleaned all terminals (they didn't even look bad) and reassembled with dialectric grease......VEROOM! Starts right up!

Sh*t howdy........a $400 terminal cleaning bill and I did all the work.

Lesson learned..........

Note: did a wash and chrome polish the yesterday. Apparently, something happened in that process

 

holy rough. sorry that happened.... $1200.00??!!! holy crap.
thanks for sharing.

 

Damn! I'm sorry for your luck JV. Cali has to be murder on that stuff. $1200?

 

That is a ton of money for a tow.

 

I got a flat rear tire two weeks ago on my Ultra Classic with the wife on back. I remembered that I had Roadside assistance coverage with Progressice Insurance. There was a tow truck with covered trailer to get me off the Interstate in about 35 minutes. They didn't even bother to tell me the cost, Progressive covered it all.

 

Yes, pulling my battery box off to run my tuner lines I found the battery connection corroded only a year later.
Easily overlooked.
Dielectric grease is your friend.
Big bucks on the tow.

 

That's what we have, glad it worked out for you. Hope we never have to use it though.

 

Sorry for the ruined ride and the (practically) wasted day.

If you fixed it yourself, why were you not able to fix at the moment you had the issue on the road?

Bad battery connections, an extremely common issue, probably cost owners thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and many unnecessary tows and the time that takes. Add to that the wait for dealer repair, and the "easy money" they make tightening up terminals.

Every Harley owner needs easy to understand details on this issue in the owners manual.

I carry a tool kit I put together for my ride. Couldn't tell you how many roadside repairs I've done in no time at all and got right back on the road.

Hope you have many trouble free miles ahead of you now!

 

It really sucks that Harley can't equip there bikes with a tool kit.

 

Why wouldn't it push start? Not enough juice to the ignition?