Turn ignition on and no power

[grantimus]

On my 82 GL1100 I turn on the ignition and there's no power. Thought maybe my battery was dead. Checked the battery with multimeter and it has 12.5 volts. So I put the charger on it anyway and as soon I did that (ignition key was still "ON") the lights on the bike all came on, hit the starter button and you can hear/feel starter solenoid click but won't trip the starter, as soon as you unhook the battery charger then everything go black again. Figured it was a bad starter solenoid so replaced it and nothing, lights come when charger is put on and starter solenoid will still click when starter button is pushed but everything goes black again when the charger is pulled off. So what do you think the problem is?

[Rambozo]

Bad battery connections. Take them off and clean them. Also check dogbone fuse for cracks, use a meter. You are probably moving something just a little when you hook up the charger.

[grantimus]

Thanks! Actually ended being the battery, put a new one in bingo, everything works and fired right up. Weird that the old one said 12.5v when I checked with multimeter but hey were running now

[WingAdmin]

Thanks! Actually ended being the battery, put a new one in bingo, everything works and fired right up. Weird that the old one said 12.5v when I checked with multimeter but hey were running now

It's pretty common for a sulfated battery to show correct voltage under no load, but as soon as a load is applied, that voltage drops down even to zero, depending on how badly sulfated it is.