My softail 'had' the spacers until I did exactly the same thing. Dropped one never to be seen again. Not sure of the sporty set up, or your battery but mine has a thread on top of the terminal as well, the spacer is only needed if the cable is being attached to the front of the terminal.

 

I'm pretty sure the battery has been replaced. Not many last 9 years.

The spacers are typically used on aftermarket batteries. HD is said to have a patent on the flush mount terminals, so aftermarket manufacturers (DEKA in particular) use the spacers as the standard terminals are slightly recessed.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

So what I extract from all that is that I should change the battery and the spacer is not really needed as long as I get the cable attached to it?!?

 

The spacer is for an aftermarket battery like nhrider1 pointed out. Chances are you do need it as the cable won't fit snug against the battery terminal. While you have the battery out just drop by advanced auto or one of those type parts stores and have them do a load test on it to see if the battery is indeed bad. It's not an HD battery with those spacers, and some of the aftermarket ones are really junk and don't hold up near as long as HD ones. If I was going to purchase an aftermarket i'd go Deka, they are the ones that make the batteries for HD anyways.

I'd for sure change out that ground cable. and go from there.

 

Ok, as an update and also to close this thread:

First of all, thanks again for all the help. I meanwhile put in a new original HD battery and changed the ground cable. And so far everything works perfectly fine. It starts much faster and smoother then before. Still in the process of getting the blueing of the pipes. Made some progress there but im far from where it was before. So minor problem, big impact.

Thanks
Alex

 

The spacer is needed on some batteries as there is a plastic ridge on battery that has to be passed to secure cable to battery.