• Required reading for all forum users!!!

    Welcome!
    Register to access the full functionality of the GSResources forum. Until you register and activate your account you will not have full forum access, nor will you be able to post or reply to messages.

    A note to new registrants...
    All new forum registrations must be activated via email before you have full access to the forum.

    A Special Note about Email accounts!
    DO NOT SIGN UP USING hotmail, outlook, gmx, sbcglobal, att, bellsouth or email.com. They delete our forum signup emails.

    A note to old forum members...
    I receive numerous requests from people who can no longer log in because their accounts were deleted. As mentioned in the forum FAQ, user accounts are deleted if you haven't logged in for the past 6 months. If you can't log in, then create a new forum account. If you don't get an error message, then check your email account for an activation message. If you get a message stating that the email address is already in use, then your account still exists so follow the instructions in the forum FAQ for resetting your password.

    Have you forgotten your password or have a new email address? Then read the forum FAQ for details on how to reset it.

    Any email requests for "can't log in anymore" problems or "lost my password" problems will be deleted. Read the forum FAQ and follow the instructions there - that's what we have one for...

  • Returning Visitors

    If you are a returning visitor who never received your confirmation email, then odds are your email provider is blockinig emails from our server. The only thing that can be done to get around this is you will have to try creating another forum account using an email address from another domain.

    If you are a returning visitor to the forum and can't log in using your old forum name and password but used to be able to then chances are your account is deleted. Purges of the databases are done regularly. You will have to create a new forum account and you should be all set.

Total meltdown

  • Thread starter Thread starter jimcor
  • Start date Start date
J

jimcor

Guest
One of the guys from the Winchester, KY Cafe Run fried his bike last weekend. A Kawacker '78 KZ650. Seems he put the wrong size battery in. The friction between the insulator on the + post and the seat pan eventually wore a hole in the rubber cap and he had a dead short across the battery posts. Smoke, fumes, melted wiring, a real mess. Now with a new battery, repaired harness, and a check of all fuses and a visual of other components for heat damage, the bike refuses to start.

He is convinced the problem is in the condensors (points/coil ignition) or coils. I think he missed something in the wiring.

Anyone have any experience with this type of problem? This used to be a more or less common experience "back in the day", never happened to me though.
 
Wiring Problem

Wiring Problem

After his battery turned into a small arc welder and melted the wiring the problem could lie anywhere in between. How efficient is he at wiring? did he miss or cross a wire, did he solder in new wire or replace the whole harness? Did he use the correct wiring print as his reference for repair? any of these being just the little bit incorrect can and will cause all kinds of problems. Does everything work short of starting like horn, turn signals, lights etc..? if so then I would work at the points and work backward, is he getting spark at the plugs? if not then he could have damaged the start circuit, at least those parts are inexpensive and easy enough to test and replace if needed. I would first make sure everything else is working, if anything is not working properly then who knows what other circuits he might have crossed or not corrected properly.
To give an idea on how much energy is created when a battery is directly shorted, back when I was in aviation maintenance school another student was removing a battery from a small general aviation aircraft when he started removing the positive terminal off the battery before the negative, his wrench while on the positive terminal hit the side of the aluminum fuselage and blew a hole in it the size of a small dinner plate. That battery was larger then a motorcycle battery but direct shorts can be disasterous.
Good Luck Bill
 
Befor any conclussions can be drawn about individual components (condensers, coils, igniters, etc.), he should verify whether or not current is even getting to each of those components (measure the voltage with a multimeter at the input wires/leads to each component).
 
Refuses to start - as in it won't turn over or turns over but won't fire?
 
Electric starter works, horn and lights work. Engine will not start, does not start using the kickstarter either.
 
nabrams said:
Befor any conclussions can be drawn about individual components (condensers, coils, igniters, etc.), he should verify whether or not current is even getting to each of those components (measure the voltage with a multimeter at the input wires/leads to each component).
Click to expand...

I agree completely. He should test the overall circuit and eliminate the good sections as he works his way through the wiring digram. It's quite possible that there is more than one faulty component or wire.
 
I have to disagree here. Going thru the wiring system with a circuit tester is tedious and error-prone. I would only do this if the entire bike was dead. Just IMO of course.

You can pretty much test everything electrical by turning on the key and flipping switches. Fix what doesn't work and test your charging system per the stator papers.

As to not starting - begin with spark. Is there? If not, check your coils for continuity and check the resistance rating. If OK, I would swap out the condensors - they are probably fried.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top