Bike not starting, click and gauges dim..
 

First off I would like to thank the people of this sight I have been putting this this bike together for awhile taking my time to learn since this is my first street bike and not a cruiser... I have gotten a new r&r check all the fuses in the panel and on the starter solenoid all is good.. battery is reading 12.4 but when I hit my starter button I hear the solenoid click but nothing else and my gauges go very dim and slowly start to brighten up.... I tried connecting the starter terminal directly to the battery ( I know not best idea but was following service manual) and it does the same thing to the gauges, they go dim and slowly start to bright up. so I guessing its the starter? any opinions and help would be greatly appreciated... also before this happened it ran after putting tank back on and I had it running to bleed the air out the radiators and it just died then this.

Charge the battery...

Shouldnt battery be around 13V?

AGM battery as typically used in a VTR should have at least 12.6v with fully charged about 12.8

OP, charge the batter with a real charger, not a trickle or maintenance charger.. If you do not have that, call around and find a shop with a christie battery charger.. And see what they charge (pun intended) to charge and test a battery.... Likely free if you buy a replacement (if needed)

Check all battery and ground connections.

Battery, through starter solenoid to starter... And the ground cable... clean, tight corrosion free.

Thanks for the input found the culprit was infact the battery, it was sayin fully charged when on charger but thanks to my younger brother found out it was not the new battery I purchased but the one I had on the bike "which was also brand new" when my r&r went out... he decided to borrow my new one for his bike... another question though it seems like it takes a lot of juice to turn over my s.h. is that normal?