Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Won't start...help. 2005 America

Newbie here...turn key on, have headlight and instrument panels lights on....when I press start, it tried turning over a couple times but then just clicking sound....traced clicking sound to small cylinder with 2 leads under the "America" cover piece.....help?

Flat battery would be my first suggestion

Could be the battery terminals are loose, that happened to me before. Or your battery is weak and might need replacing if it won't hold a charge. The clicking canister is your solenoid and it's not getting enough power to latch; when it doesn't latch the starter doesn't spin. You can also do the "shower of sparks" test and jump across the solenoid by shorting the heavy terminals to manually spin the starter (bypassing every safety feature so make certain that sucker is in neutral) if you think the solenoid might be defective. Most commonly this symptom is a dead or discharged battery.

The most simple diagnostic test that you can do is to measure resting voltage across the battery terminals with an accurate volt meter - what is it?

Thanks everyone and I apologize for being absent. Turns out everyone was correct.....dead battery. New battery installed today along with my new triumph saddlebags....Thanks all for their help. What a great group!