There are thousands of new tools made by hundreds of tool manufacturers. Some of these tools are extremely specific, some work on a variety of parts, others are straight out of a catalog, and a few are handmade, but all of them can make your life easier. Each month, STREET CHOPPER will feature a new tool that will help builders of all calibers, from garage to professional, get their bikes finished faster and with less hassle.
BatterytenderIf you are looking for a way to keep your bike's battery alive and far from the grave, doing some maintenance on it is a good place to start. Keeping the battery at a full charge will make it easy to fire the bike anytime you are ready to go for a ride. The main cause of battery death occurs when the charge falls below 9.6 amps. Then when you go to hit the start button, the battery does not have the charge to kick the motor over. Moreover, the battery pulls the last few amps that it has, and then it just stops. Your best bet to prevent this is to start and run the bike everyday. But if you can't do that, the next best thing is to keep it on a tender. This will keep the battery at a full charge all the time as long as the battery tender is plugged in and connected to the battery.
There is a full line of tenders for everything from big rigs down to farm and lawn equipment. Since you are reading a motorcycle magazine, we will start with the tender that is going to benefit you. Pictured here is the Battery Tender Junior. (It is much more than a trickle charger; we will just say it has a brain.) The Battery Tender Junior is lightweight, compact, fully automatic, and very user-friendly, especially in small spaces. It will keep your battery fully charged so it is ready to go when you are. Choose between 12-volt and 6-volt models, both with 750-amp output. The Junior retails for around $40. Check out all the details below.
The Battery Tender Junior is lightweight, compact, fully automatic, and very easy to use, especially in small spaces. It will keep your battery fully charged so it is ready to go when you are. Perfect for all lead-acid, flooded, or sealed maintenance-free batteries (AGM and gel cell). It automatically switches to float/maintenance voltage after fully charging the battery. If the battery voltage drops too far under load, full charger output power resumes. | 
The Junior comes with two ways to install and connect to the battery. The first way is hard-wired in-line to the battery posts with a split connector (right). The other way is with quick clamps (left). | 
Here is the split connector hand-wired to the battery. |
For these quick clamps (alligator clamps), all you will need to do is pull the seat and clamp them to the post. Just in case, we should mention the positive goes to the positive (red), and the negative goes to the negative (black). | 
All you will have left to do is connect it to the splitter plug, then plug in the power supply to any 120-volt outlet. At this point the tender will maintain a full charge to the battery. |  |
Battery Tender(386) 736-7900www.batterytender.com