The bike arrived around 9:30 am. Ed from Yellow Dog Shipping picked up in PA on the 26th along with several others. I spent three days cleaning out my garage, which had collected five years or so of crap. It's amazing how much crap one can accumulate without realizing it. The garage had become a catch all for anything that didn't have a proper place in the house. It's July in Texas and working out in the garage was a nasty, sweaty affair. Seven giant lawn and leaf bags and a pickup truck bed full of garbage to haul to the dump later and the garage was finally clean.
I helped Ed unload the bike from his trailer. It was like Christmas in July! He helped me push it into the garage and I paid him. I then went back into the house to finish my morning coffee and text my brother that the bike made it here safely.
I decided to go out and fire it up and see how it ran and sounded. My brother gave me a few tips on starting it as it is a cranky beast. Petcock on, choke up, ten twists of the throttle, key on then hit the starter button. Oh, and make sure you turn the petcock off when done or it will piss gas from somewhere around the carb (something else I need to check into). Followed these steps, hit the start button and it kicked over, started, then died. Hit the starter again - clunk. Tried again - clunk-click-click-click-click. Hmmmm. Maybe the bendix is not engaging correctly. Tap on the starter with a rubber mallet while hitting the button. No dice. Put the bike in gear and roll it forward to rotate the flywheel (or whatever they are called on a Harley). Hit the starter and same result. After several more attempts, I figured the battery did not have enough cranking amps to get the engine turned over. Time to buy a battery charger. I've been needing one anyway for my lawn tracter. Hit the web and found a reasonable charger at AutoZone that would not only perform a slow and fast charge but also had a 50 amp start function to jump a car if needed. All for $59.00!
Get back with the charger and proceed to pull the battery off the bike. Had to disconnect the ground cable from the Primary case where it is grounded to get it out. Hooked the battery up to the charger on the 10 amp fast charge setting and watched it's progress while taking time to clean the battery connectors and zip tie what I believe to be the turn signal flasher unit so it doesn't get in the way when I put the battery back in.
After 45 minutes, there was no change on the charger. Hmmm....fast charge should be working quicker than this. I pick up the manual and read through the instructions and find that the fast charge is not recommended for motorcycle and other smaller batteries. Flip it to the 2 amp slow charge setting, keeping my fingers crossed that I didn't damage the battery. Lesson here is read the manual before using the product!!
Three hours later and the charge light is green. Reassemble everything and go through the start proceedure - petcock open, choke up, 10 twists of the throttle, key on, starter button pressed and the engine starts right up! Now I'm completely jazzed. The bike has that classic Harley low growl and lope we all know and love. The drag pipes sound amazing.
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