So yesterday I bought a 1989 gs500 for 800 bucks, unfortunately the battery was dead, when I bought it, we jump-started it and it worked fine. Last night I charged the battery and this morning it wouldnt work, it was clicking so that means the solenoid works right? My mechanical knowledge is extremely limited, and I'm working on following the restoration tips in the wiki. Full description of the problem: turn key, bike in neutral, try start and it usually makes noise once or twice and then stops. Occasionally the front headlight will go out which leads me to believe the battery is mucked. The battery is new, just lost its charge. The guy I bought it off of rebuilt the carbs, brakes, and some other minor things.

Dead battery.

Either the charger didn't have a good connection or the battery is toast.
You can try charging it again and make sure your clips are secure and your charger is on the correct setting, but since you only paid $800 for the bike I'd be inclined to just buy a new battery.
You mentioned the battery is new?  I've never seen a new battery "just lose" it's charge and I've winterized bikes without maintainers and had them still start in the spring...  I don't trust salesmen.  You can see and easily verify new brakes, or tires or whatever.  When it comes to batteries the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Ooh, forgot a critical piece of info, the battery is still holding charge, when I multimetered it, it had 11.5 volts or something close

Volts is a start, but if you don't have any amps you won't have anything for that voltage to push.

Try and jump start her again.  If it fires on a jump you know for sure that battery is toast.

Never hurts to reiterate that you can jump off a car as long as the car is OFF.

Any battery suggestions? Broke college student so cheaper = better

Look up a store called Cycle Gear.  If there's one in your area they usually have good deals.

Quote from: Watcher on October 14, 2016, 02:18:52 PM
Look up a store called Cycle Gear.  If there's one in your area they usually have good deals.

+1 for CycleGear. Just got some gloves there today 

Walmart has cheap batteries too.