battery terminal orientation

Hi all

I have a 1972 750 roadster which needs a new battery.

Can anybody please advise me, is the positive or the negative terminal normally to the front of the bike?

And, as you look at the battery when it is sitting on it's tray, are the terminals facing towards you, or are they on the oil tank side?

Thanks,

Alex

My terminals face towards the oil tank. +ve (earth) to the front and -ve to the rear with the breather pipe at the back as well. It's necesary to remove the retaining straps to access the terminals. On the -ve, I just detach at the fuse holder.

I assume that's correct ? I've never really questioned it

The orientation of the terminals should be unimportant if the wires are full length, they will reach either way.

The orientation of the battery in the tray is very important if you use the OEM hold-down bar. If you face the terminals to the front, the hold-down bar makes a perfect dead short across the battery terminals and the results of that contact are less than hilarious.

The OEM battery (I believe) had the electrolyte level marking on the outside face, opposite the terminals; that's not the case with MOST replacements.

Thanks for this info.

I was puzzled by the old battery exactly because the level markings are on the wrong side...it was sold to me as the real deal but I figured even Norton wouldn't design it that way!

I'm going the maintainance free route so it won't be important to read levels - I just thought it would be nice to get it right,

Thanks again

Alex

old grey biker said:

I was puzzled by the old battery exactly because the level markings are on the wrong side...it was sold to me as the real deal but I figured even Norton wouldn't design it that way!

Click to expand...

I think you'll find that it was probably Lucas that designed the battery?

The level markings appearing to be on the 'wrong' side is merely due to the fact that we've become more accustomed to Japanese/Taiwanese/far Eastern style batteries these days?

and speaking of batteries.......

there was talk about using emergency lighting batteries on bikes, but I can't find the thread......

is anyone currently using this setup on their kick-start only bikes? the thought intrigues me because of their size and the relatively small power draw on a bike with kick start and conventional light bulbs rather than halogens.....

... and I was thinking that with the space savings it would be great to be able to build an extra waterproof tray in that under the seat compartment for directional relays, fuse block, etc........

karl