650 SX not starting

[Rob]

On Memorial Day I was in a hurry to throw the battery charger on my '88 650 SX and then run up to the store to buy some fuel, and in my haste I attached the positive and negative leads from my battery charger to the wrong battery terminals and plugged it in (Pos to neg and neg to pos). When I plugged the charger in it made an odd sound, and I almost immediately saw my mistake and pulled the charger leads off the battery. When I tried to start the Ski, I could hear the relay click in the electrical box (the same sound it makes when the battery is too weak to turn the engine over) but the starter did not spin. I tried jumping the ski, and got the same response, just the relay clicking. A couple of times the starter gave a lackluster half turn, but still acted like the battery was dead. I checked the red cable that attaches to the starter and it was a little bit loose, but I still got the same response after tightening it. I bought the battery in September of last year and kept it charged over the short Florida winter, and have ridden the Ski using this battery 3 times so far this season. What have I most likely screwed up? Could I have fried the battery that quickly, or is it something in the electrical box, or possibly the starter? Help!!!

[Technical Support]

The starter shouldn't have been effected. I would suspect that you did indeed damage a plate or two in the battery. Did you take the battery out and put it on the charger properly to see if it took any charge?

[Rob]

I left the battery on my charger (correctly hooked up) for about an hour after the mishap, but it still wouldn't start, only click. My charger is a little trickle charger with no meter on it. I tried my brother-in-laws charger that has a meter and a "jump start" switch setting, and I think the meter did show the battery was flat. However, even with the charger set on the "jump start" mode I got nothing. It seems like the boost from the charger should have made ir crank, doesn't it?

[Technical Support]

An hour on a trickle won't do much of anything.

If you hit it with the Boost setting, you probably fried it right there...if not again.

Standard batteries must be charged either on a manual trickle and the voltage monitored, or with a 2A automatic charger. Overcharging fries the plates.

Get a new battery and properly charge it before installing it.

[Rob]

Re: 650 SX not starting

A little follow-up on the problem with the 650 SX. I dug into it a couple days ago, and after removing and checking the starter and bendix (to see if it was binding up) I was about to pull the electrical box when I saw a frayed spot on the cable that runs from the electrical box to the starter. When I wiggled the frayed spot, the cable broke in half. Apparently the cable got moisture in it through the split in the rubber casing and corroded the cable to the point that it wasn't sending enough juice to the starter, which explains the intermittent lackluster turning of the starter. After replacing the cable, she cranked right up.
I put the battery on a charger right after the boneheaded move I made, and have been using it in my TS 650 for the past month.
I think the cable would have kept the Ski from starting even if I hadn't hooked the battery charger up backwards. The battery incident just confused the real problem.