I swapped out the OEM battery from my brand new 2023 Breakout this morning, replacing it with a Noco Lithium LiFeP04 battery. Surprisingly, it proved to be more complicated, and took much more time, than I expected. The reasons were

1. HD's instructions, in both the Softail user manual and the Softwail service manual, don't mention a few key things you need to know, so you have to figure them out yourself

2. In their quest to make the underseat / between-side covers area as compact as possible, they created some issues that really slow you down, and some that leave you puzzled until you can figure out how to handle them.

For other owners' benefit, I'm going to list in the rest of this posting both the HD instructions (not always verbatim, but accurately covering every step and every precaution they list) )for each step, and the issues and solutions I encountered in trying to follow those instructions.

HD Instruction: Remove seat.
Issue: You cannot get at the battery terminals to disconnect and reconnect them without removing the seat that is directly above them! This is easy, BUT just wait until you have to put both the seat and the battery terminal screws back on!

HD Instruciton: Remove right side cover.
Issue:1 screw and 2 hideen retainers. Don't break the retainers. After rmevoing the one screw, pull STRAIGHT to the left of the bike.

HD Instruction: If equipped with security siren, disconnect power - verify fob is present, set off/run switch to "run" (because of security system), pull main fuse.
Issue to avoid: I assume that if you forget to turn the switch to "run" before pulling the main fuse, the security system will assume a theft attempt and sound the siren?
2nd issue: The HD instructions doe not tell you HOW to remove the 2-piece clipped-together housing that the main plus other fuses are inside of. You have to figure out how to do that without breaking any plastic tabs or rails.

HD Instruction: Disconnect negative battery terminal.
Issue: You have to feed a Philips screwdriver down from where the seat was until you removed it, and past the Softail's rear suspension cylinder. But there is a frame tab that forces you to go in at an ANGLE. You could also try using an open end wrnech from the right side of the bike, but you won't be able to rotate it more than a few degrees before repositioning it multiple times.

HD Instruction: Remove closeout cover
Issue: Be careful! This is a very thin plastic piece with multiple reliefs and bends in it. Don't break it!

Open clip and remove wiring harness out of the way,
Issue: Be careful! The instrucitons warn you that there are many fragile wires and conenctors in this area which cna easily be broken.

HDInstruction: Disconnect Wheel Speed Sensor (WSS)
Issue: HD does not tell you HOW you disconnect the WSS! If you do it incorrectly, you will break the conenctor. Not nice. Took me a while to figure out the proper andsafe way to disconenct it, by studying its shape and connection AND retention tabs.

HD Instruction: Remove battery strap.
Issue: The battery "strap" is not a rubber strap like it was in older models. It's a 3-D rigid plastic box with very limited flexibility, that relies on 2 built-in tabs plus an external metal clip to keep it in place surrounding the top and 3 sides of the battery! Be careful to not break either of the 2 built-in tabs! One of the tabs is completely INVISIBLE on the Breakout. The other one can only be manipulated by inserting a flat blade screwdriver from the right rear, between frame tubes! If you break either tab, you are really screwed, because a lot of the bike's wiring on the RHS is suppsoed to be CLIPPED to that "strap"!You suck in your breath and hope as you pull the "3D rigid plastic strap" out that you won't break either of the 2 tabs, or harm any of the wiring right around it.

HD Instruction: "Disconnect positive battery cable" (this is verbatim)
Issue: Nice thought, BUT again, you have to do this from the TOP, from where the sremoved eat used to be, and where the rear suspension clyinder sitll is, plus a bunch of compressed, tight wiring. You can indeed successfully remove the 10mm headed bolt which also accepts a Philips screwdrive, BUT once you get that bolt loose, if you have not taken precautions, the bolt will drop down deep within the bike, and ptnetially be either hard to recover, OR completely lost. What I did here was I only PARTIALLY unscrewed the bolthead, TAPED the bolt head to my wrench socket, and then and then unscrewed the bolt head the rest of the way. The bolt remained taped to the sc=ocket while I guided it upward out of the motorcycle. Yes, getting the strip of tape in posiiton did require some finesse with a spring hook I fortunately happen to have.

HD Instruction: advises you to remove the oil dipstick (so you an actually get the battery out!), cover the dipstick hole (completely!) with a clean rag (or masking tape) to prevent any debris (or worse, a screw) from falling into the oil filler.
Issue: If you use a rag, it gets very oily. If you use tape, you need to make sure you use a LOT of tape to go well down the exterior sides of the oil filler tube, so that it actually stick despite mayube having some oil residue on it.

HD Instruction: (This is verbatim) "Using one hand push up and back on top of battery with palm of hand. Place other hand under battery , grasp with both hands, and remove battery. (comment: the OEM HD battery weighs almost 15 lb, so this is NOT easy) And, be careful to not snag any electrical wires or conenctors while doing so!

To install battery:

HD Instruciton: "Install battery into battery tray. Verify battery is under (plastic) tab on ECM caddy, upper left corner on back side".
Issue: Wow! You can only SEE that plastic tab if you are wearing a headband LED light. There is basically ZERO clearance under the tab when you replace the OEM battery or one that is IDENTICAL in dimensions to the OEM battery. If it is taller, it won't fit. If it is shorter, it can vibrate while the engine is running, and that would be bad for both the battery and all the elctronics connected to it or in close proximity.

HD Instruction: Install oil dipstick if removed.
Issue: Do this right away. You don't want to accidentally get debris or a battery terminal screw into the oil filler.

HD Insruction: Connect the positive battery cable to the positive battery terminal.
Issue: The positive battery cable is on the far left of the battery comaprtment, so you cannot reach it with your hands once the battery is in place per the above step! You have to fish it out using a pair of surgical clamps (needlenose pliers won;t fit into the available path). Once you have fished it upward, you need to place the battery terminal bolt into it, and then FASTEN the bolt to the battery cable ring terminal with a small piece of tape so it cannot fall out while you are pushing the bolt/terminal cable assembly downward, aligning it with the hole in the battery terminal on the battery, and STARTING it partially into the terminal thread. Then, you need to remove the tape before it gets sandwiched between the bolthead and the terminal. You have to do this using a surgical clamp, from 2 inches above, while passing through a very narrow opening in the frame/raer suspension cylinder/bundles of wiring. If you drop the bolt at any point in this process, you are going to have to remove the battery again and hope to find the escaped bolt. Finally, you should really torque that bolt head to the corrrect number of inch pounds (72 to 96 per HD), so that it (a) does not come loose while you are riding because of vibration, or (b) get stripped when you apply too much torque tightening it.

HD Instruction: Install battery strap.
Issue: Remember that 3D rigid plastic piece with 2 breakable plastic tabs? THAT's what you are now trying to re-install without breaking either of the tabs. It is "not easy". You have to successfully "snap in" the INVISIBLE tab located on the sid of the battery box that you cannot see. Then, and ONLY then, you can snap in the rear tab which you can see but which is remarkably easy tio break if you get impatient. The only easy part is reconnecting the clip on the RHS of the battery. If though it is not proepr;ly aligned, it's because you don't have either plastic tabe, or both, not properly snapped into place.

HD Instruction: Install WSS wiring to battery strap. (ie reattach the too-short WSS cable from the rear wheel to 2 separate hooks on the 3D plastic battery strap. On my 223 Breakout, the WSS cable from the rear wheel was too short to atatch to BOTH hooks, and I did not want to accidentally break it by trying to "pull" on it, so I conencted to only ONE hook.

HD Instruction: Connect WSS connector.
Issue: This was easier than figuring hoe previosuly how to DIS connect it, but then you have to slide the connector onto a plastic groove setup on the magical 3D rigid plastic "battery strap", and it will only do so in ONE direction. Don't try the other direction, because you'll pull on the WSS cable and potentially break it.

HD Instructions: Position 3 wiring harnesses into a plastic clip on the side of the #D plastic dtrap, and snap the clip shut.
Issue: None, just be careful in how you handle those bundled wires. Don't pull on them!

HD Insruction: Connect negative battery cable to negative battery terminal. Tighten 72-96 INCH lbs. (NOT foot lbs).
Issue: First, the begative battery cable does not want to go back into porper position because it is too damn short. You HAVE to pull on it a bit, but since it is a BIG cable, it can take it. But, unless you want to try to tighten the temrinal bolt in incrmeents of about 10 degrees of one turn at a time, you need to repeat the "taping" process used on the psoitive battery terminal. Don;t kid yourelf that a magnetic socket will hold it while tightening. There is WAY too much pull on that negative terminal cable. And, if you drop the bolt in the process, you'll have to likely undo much of the reassembly you just did.

HS Instruciton: Install close-out cover. Verify that all close-out tabs are fully seated into battery strap (that 3D rigid plastic shell),
Issue: The close-out cover goes back on pretty intuitively, BUT be careful you don't break any tabs. It's very thin and fragile.

HD Instruction: Install right side cover.
Issue: Be careful with that hidden front tab. Easy to break/

HD Instruciton: Install seat.
Issue: Hah! SOUNDS easy, but is not - at least on my 2023 Breakout. The front "tongue" on the seat engages a frame tab, but the installation feel is super crappy. Be careful to not dmaage the nose of the seat while pushing the seat forward ewnough and hard enough to align the rear of the seta with the bolts that stick up from the fender to engage FIRST the passenger grab strap and THEN the 2 holes in the tabs at the rear of the rider's seat. You have to try to ALIGN those bolts so that they BOTH, SIMULTANEOUSLY, come through the 2 holes in the seat tabs. When you try to do this, you discover much to your surprise that (a) the 2 bolts will not voluntarily align simultaneously with the holes, and (b) the 2 bolts sticking up from the rear fender are NOT fastened to the fender. They merely "stick up" THROUGH the fender, and are held there ONLY by 2 thin plastic collars on top of the fender, UNTIL you successfully manage to thread on 2 machined pieces to them! ! If you have smaller hands than my HD glove size "Large" or "XL", maybe you can get your fingers between the fender and the tire at exactly the right point to PUSH those 2 bolts fully upward as far as they can go, so you have enough thread to take the passenger grab strap, the 2 rear tabs on the seat with the holes for the bolts, AND the 2 machined pieces that secure the seat tabs to the fender. I can't, so I had to struggle with raising the bolts "enough" AND then sutffing them both simulatenosuly through the 2 seat pan holes, when the center-to-center distance between the 2 bolts did NOT match the center-to-center distance between the 2 holes. I made it work, but it took several attempts. This may indded be a "quick disconnect" seat setup., but it definitely is NOT "quick RECONNECT".

HD instruction: Set off/run switch to "off" before re-installing main fuse. (I THINK this is merely to prevent a sudden simultaneous jolt of power to all the start-up and security systems)

So, the above was my first mechanical mod experience with my brand new 2023 Breakout. I hope yours goes easier than mine.

Jim G












HD instruction: Set off/run switch to "off" before re-installing main fuse

 

The hardest part about swapping the battery is lifting the heavy bastard out of there. There's almost no good way to lift a 16lb+lunk of lead out of that cubby without wanting to slap an engineer.
That little pull strap doenst do **** either.

 

Fortunately, the Lithium batteyr I installed weighs only 3.7 lb (no kidding. 3.7 lb). AND, because it is physically shorter than the OEM battery, and uses plastic spacers to get it to OEM height, which you can place into the battery compartment FIRST, before placing the battery on top of them, it goes in and out LOT more easily than the OEM battery

Jim G

 

Perhaps the very best argument for a lithium battery!

 

Seems like a good video walkthrough of swapping a battery in a Heritage:

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It’s a pain in the ***. I just did mine last Friday. My neighbor was bored so I burned one with him while I did it so he forced to help if he wanted to partake.
defiantly helped to have a extra set of hands.

 

I've pulled the battery a few times and replaced it once; I didn't find it too difficult but I wonder if the different shock preload setting devices make the job a lot harder on a bike that has the under-the-seat adjuster. Mine is the Fat Bob, with the external preload adjuster, so maybe that makes things slightly easier to get at the top of the battery?

The pull strap, in my experience, is slightly helpful in lifting the bottom of the battery up and over the oil fill port.

It's definitely not a 30-second job! Especially the first time, it's more like half an hour finally wrangle that heavy bastard out of there. It does get easier the more times you do it and the more familiar you become with the process.

 

I watched Preston's video, and did just fine.

 

I guess I am fortunate in that my suspension adjuster on the Breakout is just in front ofand below the right sight cover.

Jim G

 

Yes, but Preston did not cover some of the things that someone inexperienced on the Softail, or on motorcycle maintneance in general, would not know. Like:
- How does the fuse holder box properly mount? (In fact, he did not even mention that the main fuse must be removed for the changeover)
- How do you uncouple the WSS connector without wrecking something? (Every electrical connector seems to have adifferent secret method)

It's these details that turn the job into a complex and lengthy one for anyone who has not done one like it before.

Jim G