Battery issues
 

OK so I bought this bike not too long ago (06 street glide flhxi) and a couple weeks ago I parked the bike went in for the night, went to take the bike to work and the battery was dead. Did some test found it was the voltage regulator Removed and replaced it all was good. also replaced the battery in the process since the battery was the stock battery from 06. Didn't ride for a few weeks, went out to the garage to take her for a spin and again. Dead. So I went out and bought a battery tender today, i put a slight charge on the battery and took the positive battery terminal off and it read. .05 volts. So I have a slow drain somewhere but how do I know where? What do I do from here. I just put a daymaker headlight on the bike recently. Is it possible this could be the issue? Any help would be great.

Your Daymaker HL isn't going to drain your battery.


New battery usually needs time to charge fully.
Just replacing the battery might need some time to charge.

Fully charge that battery, your tender might not be up to the task on a battery that depleted. Tenders are meant more to keep a battery topped off than to charge one that is dead as this seems to be. Then take the battery to get load tested, it may be new but it's still possible it could be defective. If it turns out the battery is good, and it still discharges like it did before, you'll need to install ammeter and see what the current draw is with the bike shut off. Something is wrong here, either your battery is bad or you have a significant parasitic drain going on.

With your meter hooked up start pulling fuses till the drain stops, that will be the circuit that has the drain, you can track it back from there. Some bikes have parasitic drains that can't be helped, that is why the tender anytime you are going to leave the bike sit for any length of time, let alone the fact that batteries naturally drain over time.

FWIW when my bike is in the garage it is always on the tender. I've had zero problems starting when out and about. To me it is a normal part of the bike given that the alarm system puts a drain on the battery no matter what.

OK thanks for the help guys. I'll go get the battery tested and charged now. BTW with the battery cable off and voltmeter hooked up it was reading. .05 VDC.

When your battery went down to .05 volts in only a couple weeks, was that after you verified the battery being at full charge? If so, you have something going on beyond the usual parasitic loss from just sitting around with the ignition switched off.

If not, then you need to start with a fully charged battery and test for "leaks". Again, it's not impossible that your new battery is bad. Or went dead on the seller's shelf.

Either way, it's not healthy for a battery to go that low in voltage. Do that too many times and the battery won't last very long.

Ya I did that test for drains when the battery was pretty much dead. So I'm gonna take it back to O'Reilly and get it charged. I'll do the test again when I get it back and let you guys know what happens.

Very difficult to read in present format.
Lets see if i understand:
You have a 2006 street glide flhxi.
Unknown miles.
Bike had a stock Harley battery from 2006.
Bike did not start and you did some kind of test.
You changed the voltage regulator because you thought it was bad.
Replaced battery also since it was from 2006.
All was OK.
Did not ride for a few weeks and bike would not start.
No report of DC voltage from battery post at rest, starting , at idle etc but i will guess the tests were completed and passed.
I will also guess that ac volts were good at stator.
you placed bike on a tender.
Report a voltage of .05 volts...do you mean AMPS...guessing you are using a digital meter to test for a parasitic drain.
Remember you need to move the probes on meter for an AMPS test.
If you are doing a parasitic drain test...then the negative cable and negative post would be safer...unit set to amps.

What else is connected to battery post?