Hi All 

I have a harley sportster 48 , it hasnt been used in about two months , I have taken off the short shots and put on the stock exhaust , I went to jump start the bike but it just made some wierd clicking noises, 

Do you think the battery is dead or the exhaust is causing a problem as it has a stage one download.

any help is appreciated 

got a RWC coming up on monday 

Thanks 

My moneys on the battery,

Clicking sound is a give away, Battery Dead

Need new battery

thanks for the advice guys , much appreciated

Try charging it before you rush out and buy a new battery.

and to avoid the problem in the future, get a battery tender for those long lonely months sat in the shed

Thanks guys

Bonkers , I will give it a go first with charging the battery , do you know is i need to take out the battery of can i just clip the positive charger cable to the battery and the negative to say the kick stand ?

I will buy a trickle charger to keep the battery charged. I brought the bike two months ago and trying to get it ready for a rwc and it hasnt been ridden.

I have had sports bike before and never had a problem if i left it for a while , i guess the battery drains on the HD due to the alarm.

Thanks a lot everyone for the advice, you guys are awesome .

Disconnect battery and remove from bike and then charge. Don't charge up by the method you stated.

Buy a new battery , and a trickle/tender charger .

You don't have to disconnect the battery to charge it and you can use any good chassis earth point for the negative terminal.

As recommended by the other posts, a Battery Tender (not to be confused with a Trickle Charger) is a good thing to use to maintain the battery charge.

FLHuTChU - I am not having a go at you, all I said was that you don't have to disconnect the battery to charge it and that you can use a good chassis earth point for the negative terminal. Sure you can remove the battery, inspect the terminalls etc but you don't have to is all I am saying. At no stage did I criticize what you said and I was responding to AlHD48's third post above where he questioned connecting the earth to the sidestand.

Extract from a Sporty user manual also confirms this, please see below.

Connect the red battery charger lead to positive (+) terminal of the battery.

Connect the black battery charger lead to negative (-) terminal of the battery.

NOTE:

If the battery is still in the vehicle, connect the negative lead to the chassis ground. Make sure that the ignition and all electrical accessories are turned off.