‘89 Sportster: Charging problems.
My daily transportation is my ‘89 Sportster 883-1200. It had problems with sluggish starting last fall, so I bought a new battery. That fixed it until last month when it started turning over slow again. Jumping didn’t seem to help much, so I bought a new starter. Turns out the battery had gone bad. I had noticed that the lights would occasionally get very bright for a few seconds, so I decided to check the voltage. Because it only happened occasionally, I wanted to monitor the charging voltage while commuting. So I dug out a voltage gauge that I bought at a yard sale. Its a cheap one made to be mounted under the dash of a car. I wired it in and used electrical tape to strap it the handlebars:
Pretty ugly, but it has served its purpose. Every couple of days it will suddenly peg out for a few minutes. So thats what killed my battery so quick. I’ve bought a new regulator, I just need to put it on before I ruin this battery too.
