Hello to all on the forums, firt post and first day owning a HD. I popped my cherry this afternoon with a 2015 1200XLC that I found it on craigslist. Seller was a great guy, started it up for me on 2 different occasions, no issues, idled great. I get the bike home and off my truck and attempt my first startup. Small poof of smoke and weird smell coming from battery housing area, tries to turn over and then the battery dies. No power to the bike and im baffled. Main fuse looked fine and I couldn't determine where the smoke was coming from.

So Im off to a good start. Guess it wouldn't be fun if it was easy....

Any ideas?

 

Take off battery cables and clean everything up and put it back together you'll probably be good to go

 

Well... look on the bright side. It can only get better from here! Sounds like you will need to trace down what shorted out while you were transporting it.

 

How did you tie it down in your truck? Did you crush any wires? Especially near the handle bar switches, or starter feed?

 

1200XLC has a terrible battery location and mount.
Remove the battery and put it on charge while cleaning the cable connections.
Pull the fuses one at a time, clean them and put die-electric grease on them.
Turn on the ignition and check things out before hitting the starter.
As mentioned above, how did you tie it down?
Were any harnesses crushed?

 

This is likely due to a 'tie down' issue as Bad Tappets and Triumph Jerry mention. It could also be that the battery wasn't held down well enough to keep it from moving around enough to cause a short (not sure if this is possible, but you'll want to double check just to be sure). Btw, with some Sportsters it's easier to disconnect the frame end of the neg. battery terminal in order to remove the batt. (i.e. just leave the neg terminal connected to the battery itself).

 

First off, thank you for all the advice so quickly. I was very careful with the tie downs so I know that shouldn't be an issue. I did pull the battery and sat that the negative battery terminal was touching a plastic clamp and it melted all over the nut. This is what probably caused the short and smoke. Im assuming the clamp shifted during transport. Any way to secure it better so it doesn't happen again? I am charging the battery and cleaning and greasing everything up as suggested. Hopefully she starts after the battery is re installed.

 

welcome, and sorry to hear about your immediate issue after picking her up. I thought things like that only happened to me. FMB42 has a great suggestion on disconnecting the negative cable from the frame end. My sporty was a real PIA to work on the battery since the cables give you next to no wiggle room. Sounds like you're on the right track since it fired up fine at the sellers house. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Welcome to the Forum, and congrats on your first HD. Sorry to hear of the rough 1st day.

But it sounds like you are on the right track. Just tighten that puppy down...and check other connections while you're at it. Possibly the PO or service person did not do so.

Should be good for many miles to come.

 

Cleaned up the battery, reinstalled, and she ran perfect. I raised the clamp with a zip tie so it doesn't contact the negatived terminal again. The hardest part was chiseling off the melted plastic on the negative terminal bolt, while still attached, so my socket would fit around the head again. No wires took any damage and the clamp is fine.

It did feel good to solve the problem and get her running for the first time. Took a quick ride and all was good. Thank you all for the suggestions.