Hello to all I'm new to the forum and am having an issue with my shovel melting both terminals on my battery. There are 4 leads going to the positive terminal, 2 are attached to the same fuse one being the lead from the rectifier and one going up the harness between the tanks the other 2 are from a post on the starter relay and positive lead coming from the selinoid, which does have melting on the insulation where the wire comes out of the rubber boot on the selinoid . My question is how to further test the charging system to find this dead short. what tests I should do I suspect the positive lead from the selinoid could be the problem. could it be with this selinoid sticking once I hit the button? ive noticed this happend as the terminals melted away while limping it home.I'm kinda takin shots in the dark here. what are some multimeter tests that can isolate the cause of my short?

 

Might as well pull that dash off and take a look, may be the switch itself. For the battery to get that hot, you should have some evidence of arcing where the short is.
Good luck and nice truck !!!

 

How old is the battery. You could have a cell shorting out that will cause it to constantly draw a charge and get excessively hot? What is the terminal voltage across the battery when at a stand still and when the engine is running for starters?

 

thanks for the quick replys I took off the dash and traced the other wires headed to positive they are in good shape the voltage at idle was 12.6-12.8 with a quick blip of the throttle it goes into the 13-14 range and the battery is brand new I melted the terminals of a newer Duracell battery yesterday and it tried to fry this one on a 2 mile ride home from where it died, also the bike was doing wierd stuff like dying when I depressed the clutch and downshifted

 

A stuck solenoid will toast your cables/cook your battery pretty quickly.

The old shovelhead starting system can be very cantankerous, all battery/solenoid cable connections must be in very good condition.

Solenoid condition?

Battery cable condition?

Is this a new issue, or did it show itself after some other work was done on the bike?

 

That was the firs thing I thought of when I read it in the OP.

 

what i see is the short has heated the main cable and transferred that heat to the circuit breaker connection - its not the bike wiring its in the starter solenoid

 

I think your on to somthing because the solenoid sticking was an issue when I was first going through the bike last year, so I replaced it but while replacing it I over torqued the nuts and hairline cracked the plastic face on the front. It worked fine when I hit the button so I shook it off as no big deal while also hoping I didn't just waste 50 bucks. Could that cause this issue? it'll sound like it sticks sometimes but a light pull on the throttle makes it stop. I think when the previous battery melted and I was having to restart the bike after it died during downshifting, that the connection wasnt good enough to unstick the solenoid and that fried the main positive lead which caused the new battery to fry on the limp home. Even if I'm right about all of that, which I wouldn't bet on, that still begs the question of what caused the first battery to melt ��
ps not sure if you can see them but there's 2 hairline cracks in the top of the plastic

 

I'd be surprised if the cracked solenoid is the problem. I had an intermittent starting problem on a '68 FLH. Turned out the PO had over torqued the studs on the solenoid, cracked the plastic and actually rotated the contact about 90 degrees causing intermittent starting. I just rotated the stud back so the washer was making good contact and problem solved. I never replaced the solenoid and it's been 3 years now. Good luck trouble shooting your problem.

 

The starter run on can be caused by several things, low battery, poor electrical connections/bad cables, or a mechanical issue inside the primary.

johnjzjz is one of the guys who can talk you through the mechanical stuff inside the primary...