I was stopped at a train crossing and went to start back up and I had more than the normal starting hesitation when starting up on my EFI 2006 Heritage. I did have my brights on and I have the passing lamp bypass so they were on too (with larger bulbs-rural roads).

I noticed right after that, I lost both my A and B trip odometer settings. My battery (HD) is just three years old and is always on a tender at home. In the past, I have battled with loose negative cables so I do have a star washer on there and things seem to be tight. The battery seems to be holding a charge fine.

Even if I did just have too much load on it with all of the lights, I do not think I should have lost my settings? If it was a bad connection and was like disconnecting the battery, the setting should have stayed. The odometer setting is fine.

Other than rechecking my cables, what else can I check? It is getting close to a week long road trip time!

 

Going to the battery connections sound's exactly right. I've seen this situation before.

 

Did your clock reset to 12:00 also?

 

I do not have a clock. It did start up after a second or two of the hesitation. The cables seemed to be fine. I sanded down the connections just to be sure as I do put a small dab of loctite on them. I also checked the negative frame ground.

When starting, it looked like all of the dash lights when off though.


I was in the middle of upstate NY once and had a very loaded bike and my negative cable loosen up. I like to try to avoid having to unload luggage again to take a seat off!

 

Loctite is not conductive! DO NOT use it on electrical connections!

 

That's correct. Use dielectric grease on those.

 

Thanks.

Actually, the loctite was just on the bolt and the cable and battery connection were clean. I recall a thread or two on loctite here about that. I actually used it for years without any issues as I just place a little on the bolt threads so it will not ooze out on the flat part on the cable. Not sure if that was the problem though.

 

I had some time to look into this more.

The start-up hesitation is similar to many other posts I have seen here. It will delay for a a second or two and then start-up. Other times, it will start right up without a delay. There is no pattern as it will either hesitate on cranking or not either hot or cold, Battery Tender on or not, passing lights on or not. Until losing the trip odometer settings, I just figured the engine was just hitting the compression stroke and it need the extra power as this has done this since I can remember. Perhaps that is still the case and the brights and passing lamps on were too much?

I went ahead and removed what little loctite there was on the bolt ends. I placed new star washers on the cable connections. I pulled the console and checked the switch connections, I pulled the boot back and checked the solenoid connections, and I also checked the grounds, starter relay connections, and the cables themselves. All seemed to be okay.

When I reconnected the battery, the trip odometer settings came back.

The battery is an HD battery that is right at three years old this month. After sitting overnight without a Battery Tender, the voltage is 12.89v.

I always keep it on a Battery Tender and it does not make a difference. I have not checked the voltage when starting yet and have not load tested the battery (I have a cheap Harbor Freight load tester) since this does not do it every single time.

 

Replacing the battery seems to have solved the problem.

I installed a 310CCA Big Crank Battery. I just got back from a 1500 mile trip and never had any issues. The cranking speed is what I now consider normal.

I never had battery last such a short time. This was a HD battery with a date of 06-2011. It did pass a load test, but barely.

I always use a battery tender and normally, my batteries, even in my lawn tractors w/tender, last 6-7 years. In reflection, this battery was failing last year but I just put up with it.