I have a Electrical question!

[cafe550]

Hello everyone! I need a little help. This is a little background on my bike. It's a 77gs550 that Im making into a cafe bike. I have aftermarket gauges, tail light and electronic ignition on it (Dyna S). I am putting the wireharness in and have everything hook up, like head light taillight and gauges. everything is functioning properly. Im trying to hook up my dyna s with a relay and in the process I think I might of hooked it up wrong. I had the ignition and a ground going to the relay, after I hooked up the ignition switch to the relay and I herd the relay energize off and On when going back and forth with the switch so I left it like that. Now heres the problem. I hit the start button to make sure everything still worked and all I was getting was a couple of clicks form the relay and BOOM nothing worked after I hit the start button. I cycled the ignition switch and all that worked now is the neutral light Illuminating. If I try to turn on the lights the Neutral light turns off. I tryed switching out the ignition switch and still the same thing. I am clueless at this point! Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks

[BassCliff]

Greetings and Slalutations!!

Hi Mr. cafe550,

Even if you supplied pictures and a current wiring diagram of your motorcycle, I'm not sure if I could help you. There are some ignition troubleshooting tips in the electrical section of my little website along with some simplified wiring diagrams. Have a look. For now let me greet you properly with my "mega-welcome".

If you are here you probably have a 30 year old motorcycle that needs about 20 years worth of maintenance. In the links below you'll find maintenance lists, documentation, wiring diagrams, "how to" guides, vendor links, tips, tricks, and a whole lot of GS goodness. This is your "mega-welcome". Let's get started.

Let me dump a TON of information on you and share some GS lovin'.

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If there's anything you'd like to know about the Suzuki GS model bikes, and most others actually, you've come to the right place. There's a lot of knowledge and experience here in the community. Come on in and let me say "HOoooowwwDY!"....

Here is your very own magical, mystical, mythical, mind-expanding "mega-welcome". Please take notice of the "Top 10 Common Issues", "Top 15 Tips For GS Happiness", the Carb Cleanup Series, and the Stator Papers. All of these tasks must be addressed in order to have a safe, reliable machine. This is what NOT to do: Top 10 Newbie Mistakes. Now let me roll out the welcome mat for you...



Please Click Here For Your Mega-Welcome, chock full of tips, suggestions, links to vendors, and other information. Then feel free to visit my little BikeCliff website where I've been collecting the wisdom of this generous community. Don't forget, we like pictures! Not you, your bike!

More links to helpful threads in the forum:
Help! Your Bike Won't Start
DON'T DO THESE THINGS
Help! Your Bike Won't Run Well
Oh God! Pods!


Thanks for joining us. Keep us informed.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[Redman]

.............

When you say:
QUOTE I hit the start button to make sure everything still worked and all I was getting was a couple of clicks form the relay and BOOM nothing worked after I hit the start button. END QUOTE

Do you mean the relay you added, or do you mean the starter solenoid (which is something of a relay)?

Either way, sounds to me like poor battery or maybe battery is just not charged. And battery only had enough in it to click things a few times.

And when you turn on the headlight, that adds enough load that the battery voltage drops real low. .... poor battery or battery not charged.

Do you have a volt meter?

Do you have a small battery charger?

.

[posplayr]

as Redman says you will need a voltmeter and charger.

Then disconnect the battery ground and put the battery on the charger using the volt meter to insure it is not going over 15V. If it is pull it off. In fact 14.5V is probably too much.


After that (with the battery disconnected for charging) start verify all your connections to the relay using a ohm meter.

If you think you have it correct then reapply teh battery and start checking all the voltages (at the relay) with power applied and making sure the correct things happen when you switch on the ignition switch and the on/off switch.

[koolaid_kid]

Actually, the starter solenoid is a specific kind of relay, a high-current relay. Most are not high current, which is why they are so much cheaper than a starter solenoid.
If you routed all the current through your low current (a.k.a. Bosch-style) relay to the current input of the starter solenoid, you will burn out the Bosch-style relay. Immediately, if not sooner.
A wiring diagram, even if hand-drawn and scanned in. would be helpful.

[cafe550]

Alright guys Thanks alot for responding. I was looking at everything again and when I unplug the headlight everything works fine but when I hit the start buttom with the headlight unplugged it just sound like I have a weak battery but if i plug the headlight in Nothing works. (All of this is without the relay I attemped to install for the dyna s).

[almarconi]

You need a fully charged good battery before trying to diagnosing a starting/charging problem.