A dead motorcycle battery is a drag, but it won’t ruin your day. Here’s how to diagnose, jump-start, and charge your motorcycle battery so you can get on your way.
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Whether you left your key on or you’ve just got an old battery that’s struggling to hold a charge, if there isn’t enough juice to turn the starter, you’re not going anywhere. Bump-starting your bike might work, but modern motorcycles with fuel injection and electronic ignition systems need a fair bit of juice to do their thing, so you’re probably gonna need some supplemental electricity.
If you’re not in a hurry and your battery is just tired enough that it won’t crank the starter, you could just hook your bike up to a battery charger and come back later or try to diagnose the problem. But if you need to get going right now, you’re going to need a jump-start.
Diagnosing A Motorcycle Battery
The most important tool you’ll need to diagnose your dead motorcycle battery is a multimeter. This will allow you to see the standing voltage of your battery. Remove all of your bodywork or pull off your seat and connect your multimeter to your battery terminals. Remember, red is positive and black is negative. Once you’ve connected the leads, turn your multimeter on and set it to read volts, some multimeters auto-detect the voltage it should be reading and others require a setting-read your multimeter manual and it should give you a good idea for what setting you need to use.
If your battery reads above 12.73 volts, then it is good to go and the reason why your bike is not starting lies elsewhere. Below 12.73 and you should give your battery a charge. Below 12.05 and its time for a new battery. Your bike may start with a standing voltage of 12.05, but it might be hard to start, causing wear on your bike’s electrical system. If you’re on a time crunch and need to get somewhere now, then jump your battery.
How To Jump Start A Motorcycle Battery
Plenty of car drivers roll around with jumper cables, which will allow you to use the battery in their vehicle to get your bike cranking. Just find yourself a good Samaritan, have 'em pop the hood, and hook up the cables.
First, connect to the positive (red) terminals on both vehicles. Then clamp onto the negative terminal of the good battery, but attach the other black clamp to an unpainted chassis part away from your bike's battery. The idea here is that, since the last clamp you connect is going to spark, you want it to happen away from the battery, which could possibly, potentially, maybe be emitting hydrogen gas due to its unhealthy condition. And, as the folks in the Hindenburg found out, hydrogen is flammable. You're not likely to have any issues, especially with modern sealed AGM batteries, but it's easy to minimize the risk to nearly zero by clamping somewhere safe.
If you’re jump-starting off a car, we recommend having the car off because the car’s battery has so much more capacity than your bike’s battery. If the car is running, you run the risk of overloading your bike’s battery or frying some of your electrical components. In a perfect world, you’d thumb the starter once and your bike would fire up, but that probably would not happen, so it is better to be safe than sorry.
So with the cables connected, flip your bike’s key, hit the starter, and hopefully, it fires up. With the bike running disconnect the cables-negatives first at both ends-but keep your bike going so the battery can charge up.
Jumping A Motorcycle With A Power Pack
Jumper cables are a tried-and-true method, but there’s another option. Jumper packs, like the Portable Power Pack from Deltran, are small and light enough to stash in your backpack and work great to keep your phone charged or as a work light while you’re plugging a flat tire on the side of the road at night, but where these devices really shine is as a portable jump-starter. It uses a lithium-ion battery that’s strong enough to crank a V-8 truck, and while it’s pretty expensive, it’s undeniably convenient, especially for motorcyclists.
What To Do After Jump-Starting Your Bike
Once your bike is up and running again, don’t assume everything is all good. At your earliest convenience, you should hook up to a charger to ensure your battery is properly topped off, or go back and try to diagnose the battery. Ideally, use a modern multi-stage smart charger that’ll charge and recondition your battery. And if you’re not sure why your battery died or if you’re having issues with your charging system, stay tuned to MC Garage.
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