As my bike sat up this past winter, when it was too cold for my skinny ass to go riding, something happened. Slowly, I think, the little electrical heart of my beloved Harley faded away, heading towards the light.
The first warm-ish day we had, and I went outside to fire the old girl up and let her run for a good while, and I was rewarded with the click of death. Dead battery. Oh well. I can't complain too much, as the battery was six years old, and was the original that came with the bike from the factory. Having said that, I wasn't willing to shell out the huge fee for an official HD replacement. I know, I'm a bad Harley owner, ooooo. Sue me.
I made a trip to my local auto parts store, told the guy behind the counter my make, model, and year, and gave him a little description of the battery as I could see it from outside the bike. He hemmed and hawed over which size to fetch, and finally settled on the right one, which he had in stock. He brought it up front, and rang me up for a good deal less than the HD shop could do for me. Sorry boys. I took the cell home, broke out the sockets, and took off the side panel from the bike. Following standard battery removal instructions and procedures, I removed the cables in the right order, failed to electrocute myself with a dead cycle battery (hey, don't doubt I could do this), and pulled it out of the bike without too much trouble.
When I opened the box for the new cell, I noticed the trouble. The new battery was about 10% bigger than the old one. Great. So I run it back to the store, explain the issue, and get it swapped for the actual, real-deal, true and correct size for my specific bike, no fooling. I haul that thing home, and proceed to try to put it in. It fit no sweat at all, but was impossible to wire up to the battery cables. This was because the positive and negative terminals were completely positioned wrong on the battery. A grand master of Feng Shui with a Ph.D. in contortion, blessed by the Buddha himself, could not have pulled this off. So, I take it back to the store, again, and try to get the battery built the right way round. Of course, I still haven't learned to bring the old battery with me for reference, cause I'm a genius. Alas, this particular, specific, exact battery is not in stock, and will have to be ordered from another store. I try not to growl too loudly, lest the poor sap behind the counter thinks it's wrongly aimed at him. Just like with a gun, I'm always careful where I aim my growls, and I don't point 'em at someone unless I plan to use it on them. Moving on. The battery will be showing up in about three days time. Fair enough.
When I finally go get the new, correct size and shape cell, and get it home, all looks to be right. I get the cables bolted back on the right way, and then comes the hell of trying to thread the negative cable back through the frame, towards the top of my crankcase, without actually letting the cable touch the frame at all, which is a big no-no for some explosive fuel reason. I finally had to wrap the end of the cable in the plastic baggy the battery came in, just to maintain some kind of control and insulation over the damn thing. I finally got it situated and bolted the damn thing down to the case. The positive wire was so easy it doesn't bear mentioning, really.
I got everything tightened properly and bolted back together, and turned on the gas. The bike turned right over, and once the fuel was in the carb, she purred to life. Well, maybe there was a wet cough and sputter or two, and some hacking maybe but the bike was running again! I hope you enjoyed hearing this tale as much as I enjoyed going through it, it's another thing I wish I had documented with photos. Maybe one day I'll learn. Yeah, prolly not.
-Owen
No comments:
Post a Comment