Electrical Stress

[GabrielGoes]

Edit:
when i go to turn my headlight on all i get is the two turn signal indicators on the guages light up and nothing else... it looks like a wiring problem to me but correct me if im wrong but i think My main problem i believe is my battery, because i held it up to the light and the liquid moving around is at around the halfway point and the high low indicator lines are all the way up top !.... also is it bad to charge a battery while it is still hooked up to the bike? and also my main fuse previously routed by the prev. owner to the R/R keeps blowing !! any reasons for this? i plan on going over all my connections tommorow but i think theres gotta be a miswiring or something for my fuse to keep blowing all the time...

 

[tkent02]

how much do you think a bike shop would charge to go over all my electrical and fix everything??

ha, ha, ha, surely you're not serious?

 

[GabrielGoes]

ha, ha, ha, surely you're not serious?

i was desperate!!

 

[posplayr]

ha, ha, ha, surely you're not serious?

cheaper to pay to ship it to me and back

 

[posplayr]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=152769

 

[GabrielGoes]

cheaper to pay to ship it to me and back

lol one of these days ill buy you an airplane ticket both ways

 

[Redman]

Edit:
when i go to turn my headlight on all i get is the two turn signal indicators on the guages light up and nothing else... it looks like a wiring problem to me but correct me if im wrong but i think My main problem i believe is my battery, because i held it up to the light and the liquid moving around is at around the halfway point and the high low indicator lines are all the way up top !.... also is it bad to charge a battery while it is still hooked up to the bike? and also my main fuse previously routed by the prev. owner to the R/R keeps blowing !! any reasons for this? i plan on going over all my connections tommorow but i think theres gotta be a miswiring or something for my fuse to keep blowing all the time...

Gab,

Sounds like you have multiple different problems. Most of which the stator papers will not directly address (I saw your posting on other thread). Stator papers is to troubleshoot the charging system.


- You say battery is low on fluiid. I dont think that could CAUSE the problems listed, well, maybe if one of the cells was completly empty. Fill it back up. Charge the battery, and see if any improvement.

- Battery low on fluid could possibly be CAUSED by a charging system problem (overcharging, like 15 or 16 volt), but could just be that the battery hasnt been looked at in years. Fill it back up with clean water, distilled water most preferabley.
Do you have a volt meter? Can check the charging voltage by reading the battery voltage with engine at mid rpms.

- You say that both the t/signal indicator lights are on when turn on headlight? That doesnt sound right, but I dont have any experience with a 78. (80 and after that I know just have one t/signal indicator on instruments).
But the fact that the headlight doesnt come on is a problem. You have a volt meter that can check for voltage at the headlight connector?

- Is okay to charge battery while battery connected to bike. Is best to use a 1 or maybe a 2 amp charger (definitly not a 4 amp or higher) or you may drive off the battery fluid .... hum. Even a 1 or 2 amp left on for days can be a problem. Thats why a "battery tender" that goes to "float" is better, can leave that on for months without problems.

- About fuse blowing. You saying this is a fuse added by PO in the wire to R/R. And you say it blows all the time. You mean as soon as you replace the fuse? Or as soon as turn on ignition? Or after running bike a while?

- Did everthing use to be okay?
Both these problems ( headlight/turnsignal and fuse blowing) start happening at same time?

.

 

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Do you have a bad bulb in your headlight? Did you try both the high and low beam? Have you looked at the connections on the headlight socket?


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

 

[GabrielGoes]

Hey guys thank you seriously for responding with anything... I'm gonna try to address my problem as concise as possible after about 5 hours of working on my electrical it has been a very discouraging day lol.. My bike is stripped down almost completely heres i what i know... There is an in line fuse hooked up from my harness to the solenoid and from the solenoid there is a wire that goes to the + on the battery. i used a 30 amp fuse today and it will not blow BUT the socket that comes from the key ignition area to the main harness got VERY hot just being on for a few seconds the thing in my hand gets burning hot when i try to turn on the lights and not only that my two indicators verly light up very dim... :

The headlight or guage cluster does not light up when trying turn the switch on. just the two indicator turn signal lights light up very dim... when i take the headlight out of the socket the signals indicators do not light up and the problem seems to go away... as soon as i hook it up the problem occurs and the light does not light up... I have two headlights and neither are broken i kno i tested they work on other applications.. My Bike opertaes fine as long as the guages (light switch) is turned off... This problem has been occuring VERY mildy and would just go away and i would be fine i thought it was normal because when i started my bike with the light on it would just take a second for my headlight and guages to light up but just before it lit up it had the two turn indicators lit up and then the whole guage would light up and the indicators would not be lit up anymore (looked normal to me).. last night is when the bike finally just stayed at the poor state of just the indicators being lit up..It seems while its in this state my turn signals do not work at all.. but i turn off the lights and the turn signals work again I checked about 90% of my connections and tried to look at em all, i soldered and used butt connectors for several of my already good connections.. i believe my problem lies near my harness that comes out of the left handle bar siwtch or my connections near the R/R? (is this possible for it to be near my R/R connections to cause problems for my guage area?).. this is how the PO grounded the harness comming out of the Left handlebar switch :

... thhat ugly thing is grounded to a bolt near the forks which is a clean ground.. i tried to pull that ugly soldering apart and it wouldnt budge so it seemed okay, i even touched it with screw drivers and other metal objects to see if anything but no luck...
i even created a single point ground system shown on posplayer's site.. one thing i didnt understand is that the three yellow wires from the (aftermarkey) R/R are soldered "directly to the R/R".. i dont understand this one bit doesnt each R/R wire have to go one on one with have each stator wire? the wire cluster my index finger is on is the one that comes out of the R/R

anyways it looks like im doomed.. there is no hope for my bike in its current state i cant ride at night and i dont think it would be right for it to run in the day like this anyway . anyway.. is there any reason why theres an obsessive amount of energy is going through my fuse when my light is turned on? like i said the socket where the key ignition meets the harness in my first pic gets BURNING HOT with my 30 amp fuse that wont blow.. to me my bike is a hunk of useless metal in its current state.. should i buy a new main harness? is that all i need to start fresh? i dont know anymore i know my descriptions are probably very vague at most because you cant see the bike in person... thank you for looking..
P.S. what does turning the key on my bike all th way to the right do? yesterday i was playing around with the key positions and somehow my guage and my headlight lit up going back and fourth from the farthest right position...but for now it doesnt work...

 

[tom203]

This is pretty confusing- looks like PO had some novel ideas. I'm not familiar with this bike, but.... When you turn the key all the way to right, this is the park position with tailight on - just taillight! If you took out headlight bulbs, do your other lights ( gauge, brake, turn ) behave normally no matter whether headlight switch is on or off? Does bike start and run ok?

 

[GabrielGoes]

bike doesnt start when the lights are ON, nothign really works when the Light switch is ON... everything works with the light switch OFF, i am really about to just buy a new harness off ebay depending on how hard it is to rewire everything

 

[posplayr]

This is pretty confusing- looks like PO had some novel ideas. I'm not familiar with this bike, but.... When you turn the key all the way to right, this is the park position with tailight on - just taillight! If you took out headlight bulbs, do your other lights ( gauge, brake, turn ) behave normally no matter whether headlight switch is on or off? Does bike start and run ok?

Yea I'm kinda speechless............................. but here goes

If it was me (but this is just me),

first thing I would do is to pull off all that electrical tape and see what is under there (remove connections and solder directly using some shrink tubing and a heat gun).

second inspect all crimp connections going into the connectors. Those have been flexed so much the wires have started breaking off (this is bad as it is going to be a pain to replace that connector.). If they are too far gone try and get a replacement. That is what that solder ball is the wire broke from the connector and I see another that is broken as well. How many more are there?

third : wire the R/R as described

fourth: figure out what the round thing is (a coil relay mod??) and check and wire it up correctly.

This is a prime example of why you should "dress" your harness. Constant flexing will cause the copper to work harden and then stress and break off. All wires should be secured to limit motion. It is wiring harness NOT a ball of string :-&

This is a time to really be annal retentive, make that electrical really pretty

 

[Flyboy]

Don't know if I missed it somewhere in the thread, but check your earths, they are a source of endless electrical frustration, maybe even install new ones, using heavy cable or braided strap.

 

[GabrielGoes]

@ posplayer i just spend the whole day doing the steps you provided.. the solder ball is the ground from the guage cluster harness and it is seperatly grounded to the framee...it looks like im missing alot but really everything is just really neat!... i have gaind confidence in my electrical work and have come to a conclusion that all these blown fuses etc. must be my battery!! the one i had wasnt even 6 months old but im guessing since the fluids were so low that it must have gotten boiled off when on the charger or it was just a bad battery... i will be glad if it WAS just the battery! I got my electrical to look really clean and straight and now i understand that there aren't that many components! i am currently charging my new maintence-free and i cannot wait untill i throw that badboy in! if i still got my problem then i will work on it untill the death of me!The previously shown pictures are for all to see what a an electrical NIGHTMARE should look like...

@Flyboy i did go over my grounds! some werent looking to pretty...

one thing i feel awful about is when i got into my guage cluster i realized that the back of my TACH is orange and the back of my SPEEDO is all white!! it seems the P/O swapped this out for one that read lower mileage unless its supposed to be orange and white?... thank you posplayer, flyboy, redman, bascliff and tom203 for your help and everyone else that even bothered to read my thread...

 

[duaneage]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=152769

A lot simpler and cheaper

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=148739

 

[GabrielGoes]

Guys i officially screwed myself big time...I put in my new battery today and the same problem continued... i thought the headlamps and guage would just turn on after some riding like it did several times so i went for a little run like 5 minutes around the block and came back in the garage and there was electrical smoke out of my headlight and tail section.... i checked my wires and many of them were literally melted and several of the copper is jsut exposed touching wahtever wires were grouped/taped close together... i mean when i shut off the bike some blinekrs were still on! continuing to fry my whole electrical system i had to unscew the power as fast as i could only to save noting.... does a main harness off ebay include everything i need? like headlamp + gauge connections as well? i have no idea what the #$%@ happened i am beyond upset at this point... what do you guys think i need to start over fresh? is there such a thing as starting over fresh?

 

[Guest]

Pull your battery out of the bike, plan on having it down for a while, repair the wiring harness and replace all the bad connectors before you do anything else. You can extend the wires that are burnt, or splice in a bridge to link the burnt wires together depending on the location of the damage. There are splice connectors made that are good, or you can solder the connections using heat shrink tubing to insulate the connections. I would find a wiring diagram for the bike if a psychical inspection doesn't tell you where the wires go. There are lots of places that sell the connectors (I would solder all of them after crimping). Use dielectric grease in all of the connectors. Then and only then, put the battery back in and start trouble shooting any possible damage. It might help if you just do one wire at a time so there is no confusion. they are all color coded. http://www.vintageconnections.com/

 

[posplayr]

A lot simpler and cheaper

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=148739

And i guess if Gabriel had used a Honda R/R his headlamp would not have smoked; Right?

 

[posplayr]

Pull your battery out of the bike, plan on having it down for a while, repair the wiring harness and replace all the bad connectors before you do anything else. You can extend the wires that are burnt, or splice in a bridge to link the burnt wires together depending on the location of the damage. There are splice connectors made that are good, or you can solder the connections using heat shrink tubing to insulate the connections. I would find a wiring diagram for the bike if a psychical inspection doesn't tell you where the wires go. There are lots of places that sell the connectors (I would solder all of them after crimping). Use dielectric grease in all of the connectors. Then and only then, put the battery back in and start trouble shooting any possible damage. It might help if you just do one wire at a time so there is no confusion. they are all color coded. http://www.vintageconnections.com/

I would try and figure out if possible is shorting. If you dont find it now you could go through alot of conenctor changes and then just some the whole thing again. With the battery out you can use the ohm meter to try and isolate where it is.

keep removing components, looking for shorts till you find it?

 

[Guest]

After removing the tape and obvious jury rigging under the tape, he is very likely to see all the shorts, the melted wire, etc. A good psychical inspection will usually reveal 99% of the problem. Following the wiring diagram to insure everything is connected as it should be should clear the rest. If the harness is not abraded or stressed, it will seldom be a problem area. If it is it will show itself up quickly if the rest is wired correctly. These things can be done by almost anyone with basic skills. Replacing connectors on an old bike will remove high contact resistances and make further trouble shooting, if necessary, much less complicated. He showed pictures of at least one large connector that needs to be replaced. The connector near the steering head could be cleaned, but any of the connectors under the seat that are blackened or discolored need replacement. The stator connectors seem to always need work. The fact that he had a meltdown after replacing the battery indicates the possibility of high contact resistance in at least some of the connectors.