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First, these bikes use a 14 Amp-Hour battery that should never be charged at much more than 10% of the capacity. You can safely charge them occasionally at 2 Amps, but never more than that and not as a daily exercise.
Also, at 2 Amps it takes about 8 hours to fully charge a dead battery.
Trying to crank the engine with a charger hooked up can be extremely bad -- depending on the design of the charger. Some of them will increase the voltage output to try and compensate for the load and can apply 2 to 3 times the normal battery voltage. That's not good for anything electrical in the bike and can be a disaster for the electronics.
A new battery only has a 'surface' charge when the acid is added. The voltage is there but there's no reserve power stored in the plates so it has to be charged fully (about 8 hours at 2 amps) before it will reliably start your bike. A battery with only a surface charge will crank briefly at full power but then the cranking power will drop off with extreme rapidity.
You won't be able to tell if you've damaged the bike until you try to start it with a properly charged battery.
If, at that point, the bike seems to be struggling to crank then you may have damaged the starter solenoid, the starter, the ignition switch, the start switch or the control and interconnecting wiring and you've got some serious troubleshooting ahead of you.
The first test (with a fully charged battery!) is to short across the big terminals of the starter solenoid with a screwdriver. If the bike cranks normally then the problem is in the solenoid itself or the control wiring that actuates the solenoid.
If you do this then be sure the bike is in neutral with the clutch pulled in or has the back wheel off the ground. If it's in gear or has the clutch lever out it may jump off the kickstand!
Get the battery sorted out first and get back to us....
Jim
Last edited by jimmyj900 : 01-24-2008 at 12:38 PM.
Reason: Safety Note
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