and we know how the rest of that one goes.

Working on an Arctic Cat 4 wheeler. No start, suspected carb issues. Suspicions confirmed, carb full of water. Got the carb all cleaned up and reinstalled. Time to see if it will start and run.

I've had the maintainer on the baddry since we shoved it in the garage, green light says it's charged. Neutral, parking brake, ignition, kill switch off, hit the button...zippo. Not even a click. Huh. Spent several minutes double and triple checking that I hadn't missed a safety switch. All good, still nada. Put a meter on the baddry, 4 volts. Ah. Wonder why the maintainer had a green light?

Oh well, I have a full size truck battery on the bench, grab some jumper cables and hook 'em up and...STILL bupkis. Da Fuq? Well, sometimes jumper cables can be tricky to get a good connection so I bought a solenoid, made up some cables and hooked it directly to the starter motor, bypassing all the bike's wiring. Clickety-clickety-click but no ruh-ruh-ruh. What in the hell? I'd had a different maintainer on that and it had a green light too. Put a meter on it, and got 12.xx volts. Hit the start button and it pulled right down to 6.xx.

Well eff me with a stick, THAT baddry is bad too! Put my BIG roll around charger on it, set it to boost and RUH-RUH-RUH and with a little more mucking about...VROOOM!

Need to adjust the carb and finish putting the plastic back on, but overall, mission accomplished.

quote:

All good, still nada. Put a meter on the baddry, 4 volts. Ah. Wonder why the maintainer had a green light?

Been there got the t-shirt, have a Battery Tender that I keep hooked up to the motorcycle, haven't ridden it since March, went to fire it up, green light has been on the tender the whole time.

Won't start, barely turned then nada, take it in for testing, bad cell, 8 month old battery with a 6 month warranty O'Reillys house brand so I'm out $150.

Those chargers can't tell if you don't have CCA available or a bad cell, they just know they hit some voltage spec.

New Battery in the bike and the thing drained in 30 days to low to start, the Deltran Battery Tender wasn't keeping it charged even though it said it was. Took it into Advance Auto had it charged back up.

Bought a new battery tender from SF member CAPhil it's a Drag Specialties labeled version of the Optimate 1, Link and that solved the keeping it charged issue so the old Battery Tender is out of the loop so to speak.

Just because it's not broke doesn't mean Paul can't fix it anyway.
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Just replaced a battery in my old Yamaha Beartracker for hunting season. Also kept it on a tender but it gets ridden very seldom as it's down at my Mom's on the lake. Actually, carb wasn't a problem this year and it would start with the pull but that thing will pull your arm off if you don't do it just right. I also went ahead and got a new tender at Mountain Motorsports.

There's an area of my hunting property where you think real hard before shooting a deer because its a long way back there to drag one out. Problem solved with the 4 wheeler.

I quit using trickle chargers (including the Battery Tender brand) after losing three batteries. Now, I just disconnect the negative and throw a charger on it 8 months later. This has worked on two ATVs, one UTV, one minivan, and one jetski for the last 5 years.

Unfortunately, I’m at WalMart right now having the 18 month old AGM batteries in my truck checked. When I left my truck in Michigan in August, I didn’t disconnect the negatives figuring it would be OK for 2 months. WRONG! Deader than a door nail when I got up here on Friday. Despite charging them on separate chargers for over 15 hours each and driving two hours, one show 12.2 volts and the other 12.4 volts. They have 4 year replacement warranties, so I should be good.

Both are rated 750CCA. They said one tested 725CCA, they other 368CCA, and neither needs replacing. He guy said they win’t replace it until the CCAs are less than 50% of the battery’s rating. I didn’t feel like explaining percentages to a 30 year old, so I left. I’ll get it replaced when I get back to Florida.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I quit using trickle chargers (including the Battery Tender brand) after losing three batteries.

I had the same experience... and went through a couple different chargers and batteries. Expensive lesson.

https://www.amazon.com/Engine-...b9-81a4-dc28e6d374b3

I have used the older version of this for 50 years. It always kept my trolling motor battery & boat engine battery charged. Even when kept at the dock over winter. Still works fine. I do not think I paid $300 in the 1970's