Whats the easiest way to check that my altenator is charging on my softail?

 

Probably voltmeter across the battery.

Roughly speaking, depending on the battery condition, you'd probably read 12.5 to 12.8 across the battery, start her up that should jump to maybe 13.8 to 14.4. something along those lines. Another way is to switch on the headlight and look to see if it gets a little brighter when you rev it, as opposed to idle. Last one may only be valid for older bikes, not sure how that works with all this new fangled electronical stuff on bikes nowadays...

Volt meter at the battery terminal. Your manual should state the voltage variance at a given rev range. As Colstah says between 13.5 and 14.5v. Anything outside those parameters means that there is a fault in the system somewhere.

 I pulled out the connector to the regulator and got a reading of between 28 volts to 48 volts as I increased the revs. Then tested on the live wire to the charge circuit going back to the battery and got a dc reading of 12.7 volts dc does that sound about right. Leftyden.

 I pulled out the connector to the regulator and got a reading of between 28 volts to 48 volts as I increased the revs. Then tested on the live wire to the charge circuit going back to the battery and got a dc reading of 12.7 volts dc does that sound about right. Leftyden.

That seems a little low for DC voltage. What year heritage? And is that reading with the lights on and load on the system when testing. The AC voltage looks ok. I would be looking at bad connections along the route.

For what it's worth, just came across this.

http://www.hdforums.com.au/Default.aspx?tabid=71&forumid=12&postid=15117&view=topic