Hi all,

This is actually my second post here as my First was the introduction.

I have searched my issue that I am having but am curious on the situation.

We bought our bike a week ago from a dealer and we had it running fine last weekend. The dealer didn't tell us about buying a battery tender but told us the battery already had the wires hooked up to the battery for the tender.

I went out Thursday night to try and start the bike as we had real frigid temperatures the days before and the battery had really weakened and not strong enough to start the bike. So I did a search about jumping the battery from a vehicle on Google and it brought me here which there was some posts about doing that and others succeeded doing this. So today I went and hooked up the cables to the bike and my 99 Durango (did not start Durango). Let it sit for a while charging and it finally cranked over. I let it sit and idle for almost an hour once in awhile revving the engine alittle. I put the bike back into the garage and shut it off. I tried to restart the bike and all I got was a load constant clicking noise, I guess from the starter. I am guessing from other posts I have read about the clicking noise is the battery is shot. Is there a way I can tell or test to see if I may have damaged anything else while doing the jump start procedure?

Thanks much in advance for your help and assistance in this matter.

 

I would go grab one of the battery tenders from Cycle Parts and plug it in. Make sure you check the polarity of the pigtail on your battery!

 

u can run the battery up to the auto parts store and they should be able to test it for ya,i always keep mine on a battery tender even in the summer mounths.

 

1.)IF your battery is duff- trying to charge it from the bike is STRAINING the electrical system and may just blow your alternator and or voltage regulator-- all of a sudden a $100 battery is now a $500 charging system...+ the $100 battery.

2.) a battery once discharged will only recharge to about 50% of it's rated capacity..meaning that once it is run down you are living on the edge of failure...that failure can leave you stranded- or as above take out the charging system.

3.) air cooled motors are cooled by air moving across the motor externally and the oil moving through the inside. DO NOT idle your motor for long periods

4.) the loud clicking is your solenoid chattering...allowing the solenoid to do this can damage the solenoid- the contacts can arc as can the disk. once damaged then it needs rebuild or replacement

5.) if you hold down the starter button and the starter doesn't turn over, but you hear a whine ( or worse smoke from the starter) that is the windings in the starter motor burning up...$$$

all this points to:

get your battery load tested at auto zone AFTER putting it on a real battery charger at a rate of 5 to 10 amps for at least 24 hours.

if it is duff, check online for a deka battery dealer and get a price on a deka AGM battery

while at it, replace both battery cables with new- you can get cables of suitable type at autozone-

and buy a battery tender which will help maintain the battery once it is fully charged.

If you are not going to use your bike until spring- keep the battery inside ( room temp) and on the tender.

try to resist the temptation to go out and start the bike during the winter- this is not at all good for the motor- a cold start has the metal parts moving without a ready supply on oil, the piston rings are not well seated to the cylinders and gas and exhaust will leak down and corrupt the oil.

on start up, the evo may blow out the cylinder base gaskets if you hammer it when cold.

best practice is to start and warm the motor until the heads are warm to the touch-- then take it easy for the first 5 miles or so




Mike

 

Thanks everyone for the help and the info. I have a tender coming in the mail. Going to take the battery up to Advanced Auto and have them test it for me.

Mike, thanks for the info those are some scary thoughts there, but makes a ton of sense. Thanks for sharing that info.

 

What a great response; I appreciate the effort you put into that, Mike.

 

Can't agree more with that. Thanks again Mike

 

Well got my Battery Tender today and went to Advance Auto Parts tonight to get a battery. The battery they sold me was to be an "Exact Fit" for the bike but needless to say it was a half inch too long to fit width wise. So now I am going to take it back and see if they have something alittle smaller to fit. I have the measurements of the original battery so that should help.

Also, Not sure where I can find this info out, but is there a place I can search for what size Torx drives I need for this bike? Seems alot of the bolts are the Torx drives and I don't have any right now and would like to get them while I can.

 

I have a number of different torx sets...

These are the ones I carry on the bike, and use more often than any...
http://www.harborfreight.com/9-piece...set-67914.html

 

Did yo check the tightness of the battery terminals first ?? Always look at the most basic items first, in this case cleanliness of the terminal connections and the ground wire. Throwing parts and money at a problem is not a good way to go, diagnose the issue then get the needed parts.I recently noticed my lights flickering at night in relation to the RPM's and was thinking it was the charging system, I spent some time reading my repair manal and figuring out what tools I would need to perform the job and priced out worst case scenario parts cost. Then it dawned on me to check the terminals and ground, guess what ? battery terminals were just loose.No cost fix.