This is the great mystery............unplugged trickle charger, all in the green. Pulled out, starter turned it over slowly then the dreaded "click click click".
Battery only a few years old, thought I would jump it. Connected the clamp on attachment to the one way plug coming off the battery for the charger. Pos to pos and neg to neg. It sparked pretty good when hooking it up and a little puff of white smoke came from the battery side of the bike. All I can think of is something is backwards if you do it this way. I have 3 bikes I've used this charger on with great results so maybe it's *** backwards if you try this?????
Took out the battery, hooked it up to another good battery, turned on the switch, lights, everything all good, hit the starter and all went black, fuse blew apparently. I figured something in the starter/solenoid was fused together and shorting out. Guess I could throw my VM on there and test continuity. This kinda pisses me off as any time I have been in a hurry, **** like this always happens. I should have parked the bike and bought a new battery as it was no longer holding a good charge. I know I've seen those fuses around somewhere, where exactly are those puppies located anyway.

 

That's where you messed up.
If you plug a set of clamps to the pigtail going to your battery you have to reverse the color code when hooking up to another battery.
Trace the wires and you will see what I mean.

As for where the fuses are I think they are under one of the side covers.
Not sure about Dynas.

I think you will find you blew the fuse in the pigtail as well.

 

Tex, Damn bro, wish I had known that...............well, I do now!!! Won't be using jumpers on anything in the near future.

 

You have a battery and a fuse problem.
The initial battery problem was made worse by a bad jump procedure.
Get a battery that has been tested by a shop to be good.
That replacement battery you used is dead..if lights were OK but then went dark then your replacement does not have sufficient amps or it was low...
How did you know it was good? did it read 12.1-12.2 volts? then it was too low.
Then place new good battery in correct location and bolt it correctly.
Then review your connections and all fuses.
It would seem like you were trying to jump from/with battery tender cables..do not do that gain, those cables are not designed for a jump and can melt/short.
After the bike is started with good battery then use a digital meter to check dc voltage from battery at idle and above idle.

 

[QUOTE=im;17045674]
It would seem like you were trying to jump from/with battery tender cables..do not do that gain, those cables are not designed for a jump and can melt/short.

This is the stupid stuff you do when you're in a hurry. Had I thought that through it would never have happened. I buy jumpers with heavy gauge cable.......
Arrgh. I'll work through it, thanks!

 

Bro we see this every year. 98.5% of the time, regardless of how new the battery is and how long it was on the charger and the charger has a green light......... you need a new battery. We have all done it so don't kick yourself too hard, I did last Spring with my Sportster. Followed all the trouble shooting procedures, pulled the starter solenoid, etc, etc, etc. Guess what, I needed a new battery. Bike fired right up. On a stock motor, non-abused bikes, the starter will last longer then most of us.

 

It looks like your bike should have circuit breakers instead of fuses according to the 1998 Owners Manual


Softail and Dyna models have several circuit breakers to protect
the motorcycle wiring. They are: main, lighting,
accessory, instruments and ignition. Each of these breakers
is self-resetting and automatically returns steady power to the
circuit when an electrical fault that causes it to trip is found
and corrected. If the electrical fault is not found and corrected,
the breaker cycles on and off causing the motorcycle
to operate erratically and eventually the battery will lose its
charge.

 

Yes, it has circuit breakers behind left side cover. Put the brand new battery in and she fired right up. It takes good connections and a good strong battery. Jumping from a battery that was good but had been sitting outside the bike for a while, my half done sportster. Thanks for all the good advice guys..........always learning.

 

Aren't we all!!!!
I just wish I could learn before I broke something doing it wrong!!!!!