[9fingers]

My day did not go so well. I rode my bike up and down my road and stopped at my riding buddies house to say hi, turned off my bike.............and that was the end of it. When I tried to start it, I had headlight, I heard the fuel pump trying to do its thing but when I hit the starter..........dead, dead headlight, dead everything. It was only 1/4 mile from home but my driveway is a 500' ski slope and my right ankle still not good, so my buddy kindly hooked up his trailer and took me and bike home. I hooked up my tender and charged the battery and all systems are still dead. My son, the engineering student, went over a bunch of stuff with my meter, ignition switch looks good, battery was good. He did not have time to study the wiring diagram but we checked all of the connections in the tool box area and in the headlight, and any other connectors we could find. HELP!! I would take it to the dealer but they know it was in an accident so probably a good reason to tell me it is not in warranty. Plus I have that 7" headlight conversion....another reason to void the warranty. Where do I start? Thanks in advance.
9fingers

[Bert Remington]

Unless you upgraded your primary battery cables, its most likely a break or disconnection in those circuits.

You "checked" -- what does that mean?  Since you seem to have a major failure, get a voltmeter and work from the battery to the fuses, both sides.  Verify ground continuity while pushing and pulling primary connections.  A recent poster found his problem in the dark -- not an approach I'd recommend.

[9fingers]

Yes, used voltmeter, so far have not found the break.

[gizzo]

It might be an intermittent break or still connected by only a few strands of wire or something. The multimeter won't show that. It's a kind of yes or no test.  There have been enough cases of the battery cable being the problem for it to be a "thing" so I'd be starting there. It's easy enough job to replace it with a known good one so why wouldn't you?

[Bilgemaster]

With as many 12V electro-gremlin hunts as I've been on in boats, cars and bikes, I probably should  be better with electrics than I am, but diagnostically I still sort of grope around in the dark (pun intended). Yes, I still rely on an unseemly helping of intuition in running down those little buggers.

Sure, I've read enough in these Forums about several frankly too common issues near the battery, such as poor grounding and wonky terminals to concur with other posters that a real good look around there is in order. However, seeing as how your front end took the brunt of your recent "wildlife encounter," my spidey sense is tingling that you might also want to have a long hard look at the wiring around that ignition switch up front--maybe test the continuity of the switch itself with the Ohmmeter. Something may have jarred itself loose. The total darkness, and not just one system's circuit. is the clue.

If a multimeter's handy that's swell. You might also try lightly clamping down the horn button, turning on the ignition and just fussing around with the various connections. When you hear that toot, you've got the brute!  Now, my 2005 "Iron Belly's" wiring is such that the headlamp will only function when the engine's running. But with ignition on the horn still sounds. Your Enfield may very well behave similarly. There's your hunt-n-peck onboard diagnostic tool right there.

Well, happy hunting...and here's a little karmic payback to Bambi just for you:

[Subbu-500]

A very similar thing happened to me a few months ago. The motorcycle just died in the middle of the road while i was doing 60 kmph in the night. There was absolutely no power no lights, no horn no crank...nothing...I had to push the motorcycle home. As it turned out, the "Amp meter" had gone bad. Now, mine is a 2014 B5 (carb) so i get this amp meter in place of the dial that has the engine check light? and low fuel warning light on the C5s. So this may not help you at all but just wanted to share my 2 cents.

[Mad4Bullets]

I highly recommend removing the battery cover and pulling the battery outward to check the brass negative terminal that attaches to the back terminal of the battery. This is a fast and easy check. My terminal sheared right along a sharp bend line leaving me first with only lights then no power at all, same as you. Note the attached image.  Both of the contacts should look identical.  This area of the bike is prone to high frequency vibration. I opted to upgrade both terminals with heavy duty brass lugs which I crimped and soldered in place.  A bit of work but I've had no problems since.  Good luck.  Regards,  Kevin Daly

[mattsz]

I highly recommend removing the battery cover and pulling the battery outward to check the brass negative terminal that attaches to the back terminal of the battery. This is a fast and easy check. My terminal sheared right along a sharp bend line leaving me first with only lights then no power at all, same as you. Note the attached image.  Both of the contacts should look identical.  This area of the bike is prone to high frequency vibration. I opted to upgrade both terminals with heavy duty brass lugs which I crimped and soldered in place.  A bit of work but I've had no problems since.  Good luck.  Regards,  Kevin Daly

This has been a problem since the UCE's arrived.  If it were me, I'd cut all that heat-shrink insulation completely away from the battery terminals and look for breakages.  The heat-shrink can hold the broken pieces together so they conduct for low-load needs but fail with higher demand.  Mine did this, and it would run, sort of, with the lights off, but as soon as I switched on the lights, everything died...

[Richard230]

More than once (several times, actually) I have had batteries develop an internal short. They will show good voltage after being charged on a battery maintainer and yet fail to function when placed under a load. So it wouldn't be a bad idea to give your battery a load test just to eliminate that possibility before tearing into your bike's electrical system.

[Bert Remington]

9fingers -- since both sides of your fuses have +12 and your ground circuit continuity is good, my vote goes to Bilgemaster's spidey sense since the fuses either feed through or depend on ignition switch.  I agree with Richard230 on battery load dependency because that's happened to me on cars but a voltmeter is too small a load to trigger that (guess how I know).

[9fingers]

Hmmm, been too busy to try anything but perhaps I will just get the Duracell or Motobatt battery since the original one is quite crap. But even if it is crap, shouldn't it have enough juice to make the horn beep?

[Richard230]

Hmmm, been too busy to try anything but perhaps I will just get the Duracell or Motobatt battery since the original one is quite crap. But even if it is crap, shouldn't it have enough juice to make the horn beep?

Not if it has developed an internal short.  In 2007 and then again in 2009, I had two BMW-brand made-in-Germany Exide AGM batteries die while I was riding my bikes. That left me stranded by the roadside and needing a tow to a friendly BMW dealer.  One battery was 2 years old and the other battery was only 6 months old. Both were replaced by BMW's 2-year battery warranty program for free.  (Note that the Exide battery warranty at the time was only 6 months long.)

[Mad4Bullets]

Of course you'll get to the bottom of all of this when time permits, but in the event that you do need to replace your battery I can highly recommend the Motobatt option. There's a great deal posted about this option on the forum and I was really shocked with the difference in overall power and performance.  It's far superior to the stock battery in every way, and the bright yellow color doesn't offend me as it perhaps does others.  It can be a bit of a challenge to fit, especially it you have big mitts like mine but it's a great upgrade and well worth the money. I wish you success in your troubleshooting. Regards, Kevin Daly

[Bmadd34]

I'll chime in here with a personal experience early last week. I went out to the barn to find Fieldy would just make a light clicking noise fro the ECU are with Key turned on. I admittedly was making super short runs with her
from the Barn to the filming area and back again for a few weeks. Battery was very low/dead. She didn't seem to holding a charge very well either. I checked the Electrolyte levels in the battery and sure enough they were
low,exposing the lead cells. A quick trip the grocers to get some distilled water was the trick. Raised the levels in each cell until the lead was covered, a quick charge session, and problem solved. Just something to check.
If that doesn't work, I've had luck sprinkling a small amount of Epsom Salt into each Cell to raise the acidity of the Electrolyte. Most batteries can be saved instead of replacing them. At the extreme, get distilled water, empty
out all electrolyte from the battery, fill with distilled water, shake it, dump and repeat until no more particulates come out. The particulates are a by product of the chemical process that powers the battery. Go to your local
auto parts store chain ad purchase some Electrolyte (Battery acid) and fill each cell to the proper level and charge it. 99.99% of the time this WILL bring the battery back from the dead. I have done this countless times. So
instead of spending $150+ for a new battery, you have a perfectly "good as new" one for about $35-$40.

[9fingers]

Bmadd34, thanks for the thorough explanation on battery restoration. My 2016 has an AGM type battery and looks like it is sealed, although I did not give it a thorough check. Time is in shorter supply than money with me, not that I am rolling in it. But I started a fresh post with a pic of the Duracell battery I installed. Went with this one over the Motobatt for a variety of reasons, color, immediate availability, great warranty, and I like to try new things. So, as it turned out my old battery was still good but now I have 30 more cold cranking amps and one less thing to worry about. Have a good one.
9fingers