Finally went ahead and did this

[Guest]

Starts up, runs... Dies when I turn on the headlight. Sounds to me like its time for some contact cleaning and a coil relay mod.

[chef1366]

Or a bigger battery?

[Adler]

Or a bigger battery?

That isn't a battery!

[Souske]

Pardon my newb question, but why use a capacitor? Wouldn't it completely drain as soon as a load is applied, then charge, and discharge again? Whyuse a capacitor to do a batteries job?

[Adler]

Pardon my newb question, but why use a capacitor? Wouldn't it completely drain as soon as a load is applied, then charge, and discharge again? Whyuse a capacitor to do a batteries job?

It is only doing half the job of the battery. It does not provide current to start the bike, the bike must be kickstarted, pushstarted or jumped. The capacitor DOES smooth the current from the GS charging system as a battery would.

[posplayr]

That isn't a battery!

put two of those capacitors in parallel and see if that helps.

also your grounding sucks

[BassCliff]

Hi,

But these bikes don't have a magneto.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[Adler]

put two of those capacitors in parallel and see if that helps.

also your grounding sucks

Its a 14,000uF capacitor, isn't that enough? Either way, I don't have two .

How is my grounding insufficient? The negative cable goes directly to the engine.

[tom203]

put two of those capacitors in parallel and see if that helps.

also your grounding sucks

Yeah or just use a 12 volt 1 AH alarm battery- probably smaller than this capacitor setup.

[pete]

Its a 14,000uF capacitor, isn't that enough? Either way, I don't have two .

How is my grounding insufficient? The negative cable goes directly to the engine.

The problem with the grounding is you're only grounding the engine, and everything else grounds to the frame, so you're relying on the engine to frame connection.

Run everything (or as much as possible) to the same ground connection and make sure it's clean and a good ground.

I have to run two ground points on mine because I moved the electrics, but I've only got something like a 0.2 to 0.5v loss when turning the key on which is what you want. 0v loss would be better of course...

[Adler]

The problem with the grounding is you're only grounding the engine, and everything else grounds to the frame, so you're relying on the engine to frame connection.

Run everything (or as much as possible) to the same ground connection and make sure it's clean and a good ground.

I have to run two ground points on mine because I moved the electrics, but I've only got something like a 0.2 to 0.5v loss when turning the key on which is what you want. 0v loss would be better of course...

Bear with me, I am young and stupid.
I understand that since our bikes (well, all vehicles) have no contact to actual earth, the ground wire tends to go to the largest conductive mass available. On our bikes this is either the frame or the engine (I would think the engine). If we wire together the frame and the engine then it becomes an even better ground.

You are saying that it is a bad idea to rely on this engine to frame connection and to choose one common ground. Should all GS owners move the negative battery terminal to a frame ground? Was this an engineering oversight?

[chef1366]

You're harness is grounded to the frame. You should have a single point ground so it all returns to the R/R.

[posplayr]

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

[pete]

Yup, what they said ^

[Adler]

Finally got around to looking into overhauling my grounds and implementing a relay mod.

The first issue I have is that the negative battery cable is screwed into the engine under the airbox, I can't get anything in there to unscrew it. Any tips on how to get the negative off so I can relocate it?

Next, my R/R is grounded to the frame, should I move this ground to one of the R/R mount bolts or can I use the frame ground as my single ground?

Finally, I went to NAPA to pick up a relay for the relay mod and they didn't have the recommended relay. They did have a similar relay.
This relay...

Its Bosch part # 0 332 209 150
I noticed that the diagram is slightly different than the recommended relay. Will this work???