starter, rectifier or what?

[duaneage]

The solenoid nedds to be grounded. The metal case may have a short wire that goes to the frame. if not, make one from two terminals and a piece of wire to ground that solenoid.

I suggested this 2 days ago, still a good idea

[Darkchyld]

Kinda a follow up note. That 850, when the owner refused to compensate my time on his bike, I removed that short peice of "grounding" wire. It left here with a "No Crank" condition.
Seems that ground is rather critical.

[Anonymous]

Just to add to it would be to directly wire the R/R (-) and (+) directly to the battery terminals to save on any other resistance.

Ok I can do that but what do you do with the wire that the rr/+ was connected to? I am a blonde women and a bit confused. lol not dumb just confused. You are talking the regulator/rectifier correct. Right now I have it grounded to itself. It is not under the battery box as a couple years ago I had problem with it overheating and burning out. so I have it in the side cover kind of mounted to the frame with stainless steel braid.

[BriTXbike]

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/britxbike/detail?.dir=53ba&.dnm=bf8c.jpg&.src=ph

I know what you mean on confused. No big deal. The wiring should be the same except maybe mounted differently but this should give you a good idea. Far right Red wire is cut and connected to the (+) on the battery. The far Left Black/White wire connects to the (-) battery.

Let me know if you need any other help

[duaneage]

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/britxbike/detail?.dir=53ba&.dnm=cbb4.jpg&.src=ph

Follow that big red wire to that small box with the little red wire connected to it. That is the solenoid. Fashion a short peice of wire between the metal case of the solenoid and some bare metal on the frame. See if it works. IF not, probably needs to be replaced

[Darkchyld]

Now that I've reread your first post again and again, Cj, you got a loose or corroded connection somewhere. The lights dimming and brighting. That point you made about wiggling the post on the solenoid tells me that its physically damaged and needs to be replaced anyway. BriTXbike made a good point about checking the battery. A 12v lead acid battery has 8 cells supplying 1.5v each. It is POSSIBILE that one or more cells have failed. Look at your battery carefully. Make sue the fluid is at the correct level. A good battery is "bubbly", gently rock it back and forth, can you see the bubbles? Now the loose wire. On the wiring diagram there's a black and white wire that goes to all the lights. Near the middle is the notation "Chassis Ground", somewhere on your bike that black and white wire is attached to the frame. This connection must be clean! What I do. Typically it?s a 10mm hex head bolt. The wire has a ring connector on it. Remove the bolt and using like 400 grit sandpaper shine up where it goes, shine up the ring connector, check the wire itself for corrosion, (Green Grunge ), if necessary replace it. Use a little dielectric grease, (Radio Shack has it cheap), coat the ring connector lightly and put it back together. Now take some carb cleaner and apply it to a cloth or rag and clean all the excess grease off. Get some black nail polish and paint up the bolt. This will seal it. When you replace the solenoid make a small jumper from one of its mounting bolts to the Neg terminal of the battery. Clean and check the battery connections and the connections on the solenoid itself. Any "Green Grunge" is a good indication that the wire needs replaced. Especially the big ones that go to the starter motor. They move a lot of current. If you feel the charging circuit is an issue let me know and I'll walk you through how to test that out. See the stator papers in GSResources.com. Good reading!

[IanFrancisco]

I ran my tests on the battery with and without a load. it was 12.89 volts. with load 12.34. so that is good.

A fully charged battery should put out close to 13 VDC which yours does but with a load, yours drops by more than .5 volts. That's not so good. Possible corrosion in the harness. It would b a good idea to thoroughly clean every connector on the harness and run some extra ground wires for the RR and harness. CHeck the stator papers on this site for more info on diagnosing the charging system.