Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I just took notice to this issue yesterday while I was riding in the dark. While I ride and when parked the headlight and the light for the speedometer dim in and out it scares me because what if while I ride the bike shuts off.

I had to get a new battery for the bike after I got it out of storage (long story short I basically damaged the old battery by hooking it up the wrong way). When I got the new battery from Autozone it had a different style of terminals than the old battery which made it REALLY hard to connect the terminals being that when they made my bike it was a stupid idea to put the battery on the bottom of the bike instead of in the seat (like most bikes). I have a tight space to work with connecting the terminals with a wrench. The screw for the negative terminal is on securely but the screw for the positive terminal isn't (but real close to being snug up to the battery terminal).

One other question while we are on the subject.....does it matter if the battery is a maintenance free battery or a fillable battery. My old battery was a fillable battery the new one isn’t my Hanyes book calls for a fillable battery does it matter?

Light intensity going up and down can be poor connection, near-dead battery, or misbehaving voltage regulator.

Terminals must be clean and tight in order to make good connection. Disconnect the negative and insulate that terminal so you don't short the positive terminal with your wrenches and then do what you have to and make the positive connection tight. Then reinstall the negative.

Sealed or fillable doesn't matter until the battery fails. Voltage is the same, the electrical system doesn't know the difference.

BTW- off the shelf batteries need a good trickle charge before going into service. Batteries self-discharge while sitting unused.

Ron's right, you can't effectively diagnose any problem with your charging system with a poor terminal connection floating around as a variable. Do what you have to do to make that connection bulletproof and go from there.

One place to start, you may also want to drop into a Boulevard-specific forum and see what solutions other owners have developed for dealing with the tight battery compartment. You may be surprised what ingenious tricks people come up with. Another resource would be to breeze through viewtopic.php?f=1&t=153<~~ this thread and find some members of TMW that ride the same bike, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a quick PM.

Lastly, just to clarify, do your lights brighten and dim just randomly, or is it in response to lower and higher engine RPMS? The lights on my '01 VN800 respond slightly to engine RPM and that's fairly normal.