Gday , recently bought my first harley after 15yrs of dreaming about it . Its a 91 heritage softail and its run great up til now ,  I jumped on it this moring and tried to start it and nothing , just a click noise coming from this grey relay switch under the seat . Im not dure of the switch is the problem or its something elce causing the switch to click , maybe a short or something like that .

any help would be much appreciated , cheers.

 

 

weak battery or faulty starter at a guess

cheers Madoga , im guessing the starter has craped its self since the battery is new ..... bugger looks like im in for some more $$$

Check the battery anyway as you may have a short somewhere...if it's the starter, check e-bay...ya never know...

Check your battery terminals are tight, Grab another relay to see if that is the problem as well. Could be also your battery even if it is new. Grab yourself a mutli meter and start checking cabling as well. You should be able to take out the starter to bench test before you go and spend a shit load on a new starter.

Thanks for the help , much appreciated . Iv checked the battery terminals are tight and the wiring and its all good , il run down the shops tomorrow and grab another relay and multi meter , i did have a multi meter somewhere but its grown legs and run away . Was all hyped up this moring hanging out for a ride then click......click...click , talk about joy kill !
Il let yaz know how i go tomorrow , hoping and prayn its not the starter.

Judging by the crud on the plug would'nt hurt to clean the plug terminals as well . De-Oxit avaible from Jcar is ideal for also cleaning
the corrosion away and protecting the copper terminals

 

Go here:

 

 

http://www.hdforums.com.au/Default.aspx?tabid=71&forumid=24&postid=280016&view=topic

i have the same sort of problem with mine with the same situation thursday morning... i was riding home on wed night and every now and then the bike would have a couple of coughs out the exhaust. thursday mornign went to start it, ignition turned on all lights work but hit the start button....nothing. no clicks or anything. so i bought a new relay yesty from frasers ($11.00) plugged it in, still nothing. so today im back to the drawing board. anyone have any suggestions?

Brendo87 when you push the start button does your lights dim? If they do your battery is probably on the way out and doesn't have the grunt to start the bike. If not then I would look at fuses first, then terminals, and connectors. Put a meter across the battery terminals when you try to start and see what the voltage drop is. Try another battery to see if the same thing happens or try jumper leads. If the bike kicks over then you can narrow it down to the battery or the charging system.

today i changed out the relay and checked the battery with a multi meter , battery is all good .
Replacing the relay did bugger all , stil clicking so i took out the battery and looked over all the wires and connections but they all looked ok aswell , a bit dirty but in good shape .
Gave the battery cables a good scub and the plug terminals that plug into the relay then hooked it all back up......crossed me fingers....touched wood..... clutched me ass cheeks together and puckerd up the ol fart box and pressed the start button and bang! she fired up !
Thank fuk it wasnt the starter , at least i know now if it happens again i can narrow it down to the wiring , im thinking about getting a sparky out to have a sus at it anyways just to be on the safe side so i dont get stuck out on the road .
Let us know how you go brendo , im feelin your pain mate.

dont know if this is relevant but my odometer had just clicked over to 66600km haha

If it's a new battery, might be an idea to trickle charge it for a few hours before you use it, although some people say you dont have to. Just out of curiosity, how new is it? I'm only asking this because some peoples idea of new is 18 months.

Sorry mate, can't help. Suggest you have the dealers look at it for you.

yeh definately going to get it looked into further , nothing worse than stressing if you bike will start or not when your out on it.
cheers for all the advise , really helps a lot .

 Two of my mates with harleys have both had the switch wire to the starter solenoid come loose and not contact properly, so be wise and check the terminals on the starter aswell..........You never know.

Run a volt meter across the battery terminals with the motor running. The voltage should be around or slightly over 14.5V and constant, at anything above a very fast idle. If its around 12 .5 to 13V it's not charging.