[InsuredDisaster]

I am sick of this bike. I hate it. I fix it and suddenly something new comes up. I trying to figure out why the current problem happened. I really really need help on this. I can't stand it.

My first post on the Yahoo group:

I replaced a leaky oil seal, and a few other things. Put the bike
back together, hit the starter, and the bike started. Ran for about
2 minutes at idle. Shut the bike off. Started it up again about 5
minutes later, and ran it at idle for a while while checking the
throttle cables and making sure nothing was gushing out. After about
5 minutes, I shut the bike off, rolled it out of the garage, then
let it sit for about 15 minutes. While it was running, everything
seemed good. The tach worked, all the lights and guages worked. It
was all peachy. Battery voltage was also good. I removed the fuel
tank to check the petcock after the second run, and it took me about
15 minutes to do that.

I put the tank back on, turned the key, nuetral and oil lights came
on, and hit the starter. Nothing. I checked the kill switch, and
still nothing. I turned on the turn signal and hit the horn and
brake lights, but the did NOT operate. Basically, other than those
two oil and nuetral lights, the bike could have had the battery
removed for all it was worth. I turned the key from on to the far
right postion and hit the hazards. There was a high speed clicking
from the relay. The hazard switch would do this in the ON position
as well. The oil and nuetral lights glowed at about half brightness.

I took apart the wire connectors for the ignition switch. There are
5 wires going to a plastic plug, and two single wires with bullet
connections. I jumped the bullet connections, and the nuetral and
oil lights came on. I jumped the other connections as they would be
if the switch was on, and there was no change.

I got my voltage meter and checked wires in the plug contollig the
turn signal relay. They showed over 12 volts. The brake light wires
showed no voltage. I tried both wires to ground, and even squeezed
the brake lever and pedal to see if that would do anything. The 5th
wire was also checked and there was no voltage.

I cut the orange/green wire which runs from the ignition switch to
the turn signal relay. It runs to ground. I connected it to the
positive batt terminal and hit the turn signal switch. While the
signal switch was showing some effect, it, and the hazard switch
both produced a high speed clicking from the relay.

As one final check, I hooked up a known good battery but it also
produced the same results.

Regulator and battery have less than 100 miles on it.

Stator has less than 2,000 on it. It looked good when I changed out
the shifter oil seal. I checked for any disconnected wires and found
none.

Can anyone tell me what I should do with this thing? WHere should I
look first?


MY SECOND POST
Ok, I checked again, but found no wires that seemed to look faulty.
There really aren't a lot of wires around the fuel tank anyway.

I did find these two things:

1) I cut away some of the insulation around the wires coming off of
the start button and engine cut off switch, they all were negative.
When I took the black lead and touchd any of the three wires from
the engine cut off switch and the start switch, and put the red lead
to the positive battery terminal, the voltage was around 12.3x
volts. This was with the key OFF. When I turned the key ON, the
nuetral and oil lights came on as before, but the meter now read
0.3x volts. Does this mean that there is a short somewhere?

2) When I unplugged the brown single wire going to the ignition
switch, the nuetral and oil lights went out. I could now hit the
turn signal switch, the hazard lights, and the starter, and the
solenoids for each would buzz. Additionally, the oil and nuetral
lights would come back on, but dimmer than before. Still, it was
easy to see that they were illuminated.


ADDITIONAL INFO

There are no blown fuses.

 

[cegodsey]

Whoa! Slow down there son! OK, I read where you took a ground wire and hooked it to 12 volts. Why? I think just doing that is asking for trouble. As to why the engine cut off switch would read 12 volts, then no volts, is that in the first state it was grounded, and in the second, it had 12 volts applied to it. Do you have a shop manual with the electrical diagrams? If you do, you should be able to trace the wires and figure out what voltages at what state. In the case of the cut off switch, it is either grounded or 12 volts.

As to what's wrong, it sounds like you have a bad system ground somewhere. The relay clicking is a sure sign of low voltage, and you say you have a new battery (one of the good MF batteries, right?), r/r and stator, so if it isn't any of those, it's a bad ground somewhere. Refer to the electrical diagrams for each light that isn't working, to see where the 12v and the ground are coming from. What is the voltage on the battery when the ignition is on?

Oh, and QUIT JUMPING WIRES TO 12V OR GROUND! That's a good way to fry something! Use your voltmeter and electrical diagrams!

Sorry - I haven't had anything to eat yet today, and it tends to make me a tad grumpy.

 

[cegodsey]

PS - did you remove the tank again to make sure you didn't pinch a wire somewhere? Seems suspicious that all the problems started after you checked the petcock. If you did pinch a wire to ground, you may have already blown something...

 

[InsuredDisaster]

Well guys, on my bike, ever since I got it, the black/yellow wire from the negative terminal on the batt to the rest of the bike ran directly to the regulator. I didn't connect with anything else on the bike, as it appeared to be required to do according to the wiring diagram. After spending about 5 hours this morning, I ran a nother wire from the negative terminal to a suitable connection in the wiring harness, as per wiring diagram. The bike fired right up. I have no idea why the bike did work at one time, then stopped working. I litterally checked every wire I could get to for pinches, shorts, or missing insulation and found nothing. Its a mystery to me, but its working now. Go figure.

Anyway, thanks for your time. I don't think anyone could have told me the problem without looking at the bike. I'm trying to decide if I trust the bike enough to go a hundred miles from home base tomorrow. I did ride the bike about 60-70 miles today, but all within a 15 mile radius of home base, so I would get a free tow if I broke down. But the bike responded very well.

Oh Cegodsey, to really make you grumpy, I got to my bike at 5:30 AM this morning, but couldn't find my multi meter. Since it was raining and I was on a bicycle, I didn't feel like going back out to get my extra one from home. (My friend lets me have full use of her garage for motorcycle repairs,but its a 15 minute bike ride from my house.) So for 5 hours, with nothing more than a length of 14 or 16 guage wire (It was as big as the existing wires on the bike) and a couple of wiring diagrams, I was jumping wires all over the bike and found my problem! The thing that made me mad was that when I finally got the bike running, I picked up the bag that I brought along when I road over this morning and spotted the meter under it! I must have set it on the meter when I arrived this morning and never thought to pick it up to look under it while searching high and low for the meter.

But you were right, it was the ground that was messed up, though I just read your message after I fixed the problem. But if you PM me your address, I'll send you a post card to say thanks for replying. I do appreaciate all the help I can get with this bike.

 

[bilyum]

I always cary a card with towing and emergency numbers in case of any disaster. Also , if you suspect problems do not ride alone.

 

[InsuredDisaster]

I do have a card, and I do suspect problems at all times. But I don't have anyone else, so I ride alone. Just me and my good buddy Weiser. . .

I did take the bike for a 200 mile cruise and it worked. Battery seemed to charge up and I didn't have any problems other than a leaking tank, but thats been dealt with, just waiting on it a bit.