Ok so this morning I went to crank the bike to ride to work. Sounded like the battery was dead. I am thinking that I possibly forgot to turn the radio off after hitting the mute button when pulling into the driveway. When I got the bike into the shed, I plugged in the trickle charger. Well apparently my wife unplugged the trickle charger. I am assuming she was unaware she did it.

Here is my question. Assuming that I did NOT turn off the radio, why would a less than 1 month old battery be dead? I bought the bike used. It is 12 years old so is there something that deals with the battery that I may need to go ahead and change? Odd question but is the stator the same thing as a charger? Would something like that need changing?

If so what would the cost of the starter be as well as cost of installation?

Thanks,
Michael

Yes, the Stator does the charging when the motor is running. It's not all that uncommon, for a battery to fail. There have been several new ones do it, just like yours 'may' have done.
You can charge the battery and see if it will be okay, and or take the battery to an auto parts store or somewhere where they can put a tester on the battery and determine if the battery is bad(its hard to test a dead battery, so try and charge it before taking it in, or I think they'll have to charge it for a bit).
If the battery is fine, then you can move on to determining if its the rectifier/regulator, or if the Stator is not doing its thing.
Do the light's come on and the gauges sweep, when you turn the key to on?

Curt just reminded me of something also, make sure that the connections at the battery are clean and tight also.

Hi, More than likely it is the battery due to leaving the radio on. These batteries do not have a long reserve capacity. If I were you try charging it and it may hold a charge. If that doesnt work try a new battery.
Hope this helps you
Mark

Recharge, check connections, turn the radio off (should be on the switched side of ignition to prevent this , and check back and let us know what you have.

We have had a couple of people lately do this and find they did not get the hardware tight at the new battery installation.

PS- Scold your wife for unplugging the charger, and give yourself half a demerit for not making sure it was charging before you walked off!

SKWEARpeg wrote:
Yes, the Stator does the charging when the motor is running. It's not all that uncommon, for a battery to fail. There have been several new ones do it, just like yours 'may' have done.
You can charge the battery and see if it will be okay, and or take the battery to an auto parts store or somewhere where they can put a tester on the battery and determine if the battery is bad(its hard to test a dead battery, so try and charge it before taking it in, or I think they'll have to charge it for a bit).
If the battery is fine, then you can move on to determining if its the rectifier/regulator, or if the Stator is not doing its thing.
Do the light's come on and the gauges sweep, when you turn the key to on?

Curt just reminded me of something also, make sure that the connections at the battery are clean and tight also.

After replacing the battery, it cranked like a champ (until this morning). After plugging in the charger I went back out just to see what it would do. Of course it didn't crank but it did turn over much better. I noticed that while trying to crank it (after plugged in) the speedomter would bounce back and forth from zero to pegged out. If I remember correctyl the engine light would come on but not sure if it was flashing off and on or stayed on continuously.

If I do end up having to replace the stator and rectifier, how will I know that is what needs to be done before spending the money and how much should those parts and labor cost?

Let's get your battery topped up and see if we can get it running and check your charging output and go from there.

I don't have the pin-out in front of me to check the regulator/rectifier, or you could be working it while the battery charges. SKWEARPeg?

Edited Post: crossed with another. Sorry.

Gotta call the wife today and tell her not to touch it. I work 48 hours on 24 hours off. I will not be home until Saturday morning. I will check it then. It should be plenty charged within 48 plus hours.

All of the different charging and starting components can be tested to track down the culprit...somebody else on here has more then likely experienced this very thing, and has the answer, if in fact it is something in the charging system......most are waiting for your battery to charge .

As JD and Bassmar mentioned, get the battery charged completely first. It may be all that's wrong. Make sure all the connections at the battery are clean and tight.

That should be plenty of time to get the battery back up. You have a digital multimeter, or at least an analog you are familiar with?

I don't have one, but I can get one at o'reilly's. If the batter is good what should it read? Bad, what should it read?