Hey guys,

I have a question for anyone willing to help me out. I have a 2006 Sportster 1200 Custom. The other day my old battery died on me on the way to work. The ground terminal was burnt up pretty good, so I replaced it with a new battery. Now I am having issues. The battery light and engine light indicator will come on and stay on for a minute or two, then go away. On a twenty mile ride it happened at least a half-dozen times or so. I don't know too much about bikes, so I pulled a multimeter out and at rest it shows about 13 volts or high 12s, and while running it shows about 14.4 to 14.8 volts. I read the FAQ about pulling the diag codes and I had four:

P0562 Battery Voltage Low
P0563 Battery Voltage High
B1006 Accessory Line Overvoltage Instruments
B1007 Ignition Line Overvoltage Instruments

I've reset them, and I'm about to take it around the block to see if they come back or not. I keep the bike on a battery tender while not riding as well, if that helps. The model of battery is an AGM X2Power, the link to its specs are below.

Thanks for any assistance with this...just to throw a guess out there, maybe it's the voltage regulator since the codes seem to be fluctuating between low and high voltage...

Battery Link: http://www.batteriesplus.com/product...y-X2--14L.aspx

 

So after about a 20-30 mile ride, all four codes popped up again. I rechecked the voltage off of the battery terminal and it fluctuated between high 12s and the high 13s after the ride back (15 or so miles). Is there any other checks I can do to narrow the problem down? Thanks!

Jon

 

Sadly, I have a lot of experience with these things. If the lights are coming on intermittently, it is most likely a short or corrosion some where. Once the Stator, or Voltage Regulator goes out, those light stay on.

The first place I would check would be the Maxi fuse. That's not likely the problem, but sometimes is. And it's the easiest to check.

 

You need to check the other end of the ground cable from the battery. Make sure there isn't a lot of corrosion on it and that you have a tight connection. Bad grounds will cause all kinds of electrical issues.

 

I will check the grounds tomorrow. How do i check the maxi fuse...just see if any are blown or something else? The lights stay on...i haven't noticed them be intermittent...and when i drove it today, the way back was dark and i saw no flickering or anything like that.

Is it common for either of those parts to go bad at 12,000 miles? Seems like an awfully short period of time...

Thanks

 

The maxi fuse, just pull it out and see if the connectors are clean. The maxi fuse is not blown, if it were the bike would do nothing. Those fuses do occasionally get corrosion your type problems. As was previously states, also check the ground on the engine. That is frequently a problem.

 

When you talk about the ground on the engine, you mean the one where the black battery terminal connects to, correct? I will check the fuses as well, thanks for the input. I'll post on here as soon as I'm done checking all of that...


Jon

 

So I removed the maxi fuse and there was a lot of white stuff on it...I'm guessing corrosion. I bought a new one and shot some compressed air in the female end where the fuse gets plugged into...I'm hoping that will do the trick. I also took the battery out and cleaned all the connectors on the positive and negative sides; there was a little corrosion on the black grounding cable as well. It's raining out so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to take it on a test ride and see if the codes pop back up or not.

Jon

 

sounds like a good start ....now go over the whole bike looking for corroded terminals, if you fine any clean them and grease them...and grease the rest just for good luck...any grease will work (I prefer red spray grease, just because its easy to get into the plugs etc.)..including the battery terminals and ground straps/wires...

 

On a hunch I decided to check the other 6 fuses (the 15 amp ones under the battery cover) and found that all of prongs were blackened. I took some steel wool and cleaned them all off, and checked them with a multimeter for continuity. Does this mean anything other than they haven't been checked in a while, or something else? I added some of HD's electrical lubrication "stuff" to the battery terminals as well..

Thanks,

Jon