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Electrical Gremlins Strike

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    Electrical Gremlins Strike

    So, it was a beautiful day today, so I decide to take a spontaneous ride to a national park a little over 100 miles away. I get to the town just outside the park and make a couple stops for gas and trying to find lunch. I end up grabbing a sandwich at subway, throw it in my backpack, and get ready to head into the park. Except the engine just spins when I hit the starter, it's not even trying to fire up. Great. Time to eat my sandwich so I'm not trying to figure it out on an empty stomach.

    I've done the coil relay mod, and I'm not hearing the click from the relay when I flip the kill switch. I've got some wrenches and screwdrivers with me, but not really anything to work on the electrical system . Another biker stopped for a sandwich as well and let me know there's a motorcycle shop a couple blocks down the road. I walk over there to see if they can help me out, but they closed a half hour before I had gotten there.

    Back at the bike, I notice a bicycle shop still open, and they just so happened to have a multimeter I could use . I found out the power from the kill switch wasn't getting to the relay to turn it on. I decided to just bypass the relay and connect the always on wire to the coils to get me home (who needs to turn off the engine?). There's an auto parts store 6 or 7 blocks away, I gave them a call to find out they were closing in 5 min. I booked it down there and got the connector I needed.

    I took my time on the walk back, got the wiring done, and she started right up. Took the long way home on the twisty roads since I didn't get to have fun on the mountain roads in the park.

    It was almost dusk when I got off the freeway and was only a couple miles from home when all the lights went out. Messed around with the turn signals and they flickered for a second then went out too. Pretty sure the only reason the engine was still running is that the coils were connected straight to the battery at this point. I turned onto the side roads and took them the last mile home. Pulled into the garage, stalled the engine to kill it, then disconnected the battery.

    Haven't poked around yet, but I'm pretty good with the electrical side of things, so don't have too many worries. If you do have ideas or suggestions though, I'd be glad to hear them. I think it might be time to go through everything and get rid of all these bullet connectors.

    #2
    Sounds like time to go through the wiring harness. Snag a copy of your wiring harness from BassCliff's web site, blow it up to 11x17 so it is readable, and start tracing. And yes, while you are at it replacing the bullets with spade connectors always helps.
    Good luck.

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