HD Motorcycle Battery Test Pre-Service

When we start Touring maintenance, we like to remove the rear saddle bags. Mark's gonna remove this saddle bag. There's two handheld fasteners on the inside of the bag. They should come free by hand, you shouldn't need any tools. Remove the bag, lift it upwards. Be careful of the top lid of the bag against the bottom of the tour pack. It's nice on these big bikes, besides them being a big bike, to work with a friend or a partner. When removing the seat you wanna open the tour pack lid, so that this back rests flap does not interfere with the long shanked Phillips screwdriver. Put your Phillips down on the Phillips screw. You're gonna loosen the screw. Keep your finger on the screw and push it down into the seat tab as you remove the seat, being cautious of the paint on the tour pack. Once you lift the seat completely, put it away on a nice, safe shelf. After removing the seat you wanna make sure you close the tour pack lid gently, not to cause any excess stress on the hinges and latch it closed. From there, you wanna remove the red boot covering the positive cable and you wanna just double check that your cables are tight before you do a charging system input check. Positive and negative are tight. We're gonna put a voltmeter set on DC volts onto the battery. Red to positive naturally and black to negative. At this point we're gonna start the motorcycle. You're gonna turn the ignition switch on. You're gonna turn the handlebar rocker switch on. Watch your dash lights 'til they go out. Start the motorcycle. The next step in this service is gonna be to remove the negative cable from the battery. This ensures that the battery has been taken out of the electrical path on the motorcycle. During the charging system check, you notice that the voltmeter went up well above 14 volts DC. This is a nice optimum number for voltage a input on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. With the negative cable removed from the battery, we like to put a piece of black electrical tape around the end of the cable. This verifies that the cable cannot make ground and cause any electrical mishaps during a service. While you're in around the battery area, we like to give the wiring harness a little extra attention due to the fact that this seat runs right above the harness. This is the most likely area to have chafing or wires pull and tug out. Check everything. Take a couple minutes. It's time well spent. With the motorcycle up on the table lift, always make sure it's securely tied down with soft straps. Apply the air. Put the motorcycle up in the air. Lock the motorcycle down with the handy locking mechanism. This is the Handy S.A.M. 1,000 Lift. We've been using Handy products for years. We like their table lifts. This is a new one we're kind of excited about because it has a dropout panel. Once the motorcycle is up in the air, it is nice and secure. It's time to go to work.