Motorcycle Repair: slow electrical drain, lead acid batteries, electrical drain


Question
I understand that this vintage (1996 VF750) is not listed in your up front listing of expertise, however I really need some help.  The battery on this bike is new about two months old, but for some reason it wont hold a charge. If it was a car I would be looking to the alternator. Like it has a slow drain on the battery, It was hesitant to start yesterday and now the battery is almost completely dead. Where do I start ?  Please help.

Answer
Todd, like you said this is outside my experience but if the bike was sitting in my shop, I'd start by using a VOM to measure how much current, I'm using.  It's possible the battery has an internal leak. Lead acid batteries will drain themselves over time.  But if there's measureable current coming out of the battery, I'd unplug the voltage regulator first and see if that doens't drop it to near zero. I'm guessing there's a clock or something on that bike that could require a very small amount of energy to run even with the key off.  

Regards
Rich