Ok I tried using the battery tender hookup to help a guy with a dead battery. I knew it was a way too small wire for this but he was desperate and I thought maybe it would work for the few seconds it would take. WRONG!! Good deeds never go unpunished is the phrase I think. Smoke came out almost immediately so I disconnected but not before the hot wire was melted. So someone came along with one of those portable chargers and got him going. As nice as those are I don't really want to carry one for just in case. Question is how would you jumpstart a bike without taking off the seat and getting to the posts? Best I can think of is add a couple of beefy cables to the posts with ends I can cap off. Kind of a heavy duty battery tender hook up. Any other suggestions other than take off the seat?

 

Remove the little rubber boot on the positive lug of the starter, there's a nut that holds the cable from the battery on it. Connect the positive clamp of the jumper cable there and the negative clamp to the frame, voila, no need to remove the seat!

 

That's odd, the battery tender pigtail should have had an inline fuse .

 

Yes, that's the way I figured it could be done.

John

 

Excellent suggestion thanks

 

Depends on how old the unit is. The early versions did not have the fuse unless you bought the new style extension.

 

How did you connect them? If you just plugged 2 battery tender cables together you crossed the wires and put one bikes positive to the others negative.

I've never done it with a Harley, but I have used battery tender cables to jump start a Kawasaki Ninja. But I first reversed polarity on one bike, then connected the two together, and instead of trying immediately to jump start them I left the good bike running for about 15 minutes to charge the dead bikes battery a bit and then the dead bike started. It did blow the fuse in one of the bikes battery tender cable.

And I don't know why you don't want to remove the seat. It's one screw on a Sportster.

 

I carry one of those jump start batteries you mentioned and installed a cable just for that purpose. With a supplied adapter it doubles as a cable for my batter tender. The batteries are small and you can either jump start yourself or someone else if needed, including a car or a truck. I also have a set of jumper cables for the bike. On my 2006 I can access the positive terminal of the battery with just opening the side cover.

I understand your not wanting to carry one, but they are handy. I charge mine maybe once or twice a year.




I agree, but I had to think about that for a moment. I guess the coffee it just starting to take effect

 

Didn't connect 2 tender cables because of what you said. Good point about the charging it for a 15 minutes first. I was in a hurry so my bad for not doing that. The screw on my seat also connects other stuff like rear rack, not that it's a big deal to remove but i was looking for a different way to do it. Also I didn't have the right allen wrench with me since I was out on a test ride.

 

Push start? I've done it a few times.