jump start process for a low battery

Do I connect to the positive terminal and the negative to the frame or vice versa?

sorry folks but I am a novice at this.

:???:

Do I connect to the positive terminal and the negative to the frame or vice versa?

sorry folks but I am a novice at this.

:???:

Positive to positive and negative to negative. (or you can connect the negative cable to earth on either, or both vehicles.)

[TrumpetSprint]

Positive to positive (red wire/terminal cover) negative to negative. Auto jumper cables are hard to connect to motorcycle batteries, so you can try to find a good spot to clip to the bike's frame (negative) and use one hand to hold the cable (keep your hand one the insulated portion of the clips) to the positive terminal and the other to thumb the starter switch.

A word of caution. Car batteries and motorcycle batteries are 12 volts, and the motorcycle's starter circuitry has a constant resistance, therefore your motorcycle will draw the same amount of current whether you jump with a car battery or a motorcycle battery. The problem with using a car battery comes from the fact the the car battery has much much much more current carrying capacity (amp hours) than your mototcycle battery.

If you just hold the thumb switch and crank and crank and crank you can build up enough heat in the starter motor to burn it out. Your motorcycle battery would run down before you could burn out the starter motor.

Just do short bursts with the starter with short pauses in between and you'll give the starter a chance to "cool" down. It's a good practice to always follow (car or motorcycle), you'll save a lot of wear and tear on your starter and battery and get the battery either charged up or replaced as soon as possible.

[squod]

Positive to positive, Ground of the helper to the frame somewhere away from the dead battery. It will/may be making hydogen gas which is explosive in almost all concentrations with oxygen/air. Sounds like I'm being obsessive about this but I blew up a battery once and it is very impressive. Parts of the battery went on the second story roof. I had on dark glasses and got no acid in my eyes but I did use three boxes of baking soda to clean up the mess. Just always make the last connection to hook up the ground cable to some bolt on the dead vehicles motor. And on the subject, if these are old cars with chrome bumpers don't let the bumpers touch or you may have a circuit as soon as you hook up the positive cable. If you have vintage stuff with positive earth..... well, shame on you

[squod]

Positive to positive, Ground of the helper to the frame somewhere away from the dead battery. It will/may be making hydogen gas which is explosive in almost all concentrations with oxygen/air. Sounds like I'm being obsessive about this but I blew up a battery once and it is very impressive. Parts of the battery went on the second story roof. I had on dark glasses and got no acid in my eyes but I did use three boxes of baking soda to clean up the mess. Just always make the last connection to hook up the ground cable to some bolt on the dead vehicles motor. And on the subject, if these are old cars with chrome bumpers don't let the bumpers touch or you may have a circuit as soon as you hook up the positive cable. If you have vintage stuff with positive earth..... well, shame on you

[pendraig]

Hi;
A word of caution:
Trying to start a T3 engine with a low battery can damage the starter's sprag clutch! If by jumping the battery, you don't get the engine to turn over at a nice brisk rate, give it up immediately. Go buy another battery. When starting my bike by attempting to jump a low battery last year, I destroyed its sprag clutch. Had to take the engine out of the bike, split the cases, haul out the transmission, change out the sprag clutch, then put it all back together. Took three days and 200 bucks. Almost didn't make bike week because of it. It was explained to me later that if the engine is turning over too slowly while you are attempting to start it, combusting gases may reach the piston crown before it reaches (or has the momentum to pass) top dead center. This will force the engine backwards against the forward thrust of the starter. Something has to give and the weakest link is your sprag-clutch.

[pendraig]

Hi;
A word of caution:
Trying to start a T3 engine with a low battery can damage the starter's sprag clutch! If by jumping the battery, you don't get the engine to turn over at a nice brisk rate, give it up immediately. Go buy another battery. When starting my bike by attempting to jump a low battery last year, I destroyed its sprag clutch. Had to take the engine out of the bike, split the cases, haul out the transmission, change out the sprag clutch, then put it all back together. Took three days and 200 bucks. Almost didn't make bike week because of it. It was explained to me later that if the engine is turning over too slowly while you are attempting to start it, combusting gases may reach the piston crown before it reaches (or has the momentum to pass) top dead center. This will force the engine backwards against the forward thrust of the starter. Something has to give and the weakest link is your sprag-clutch.