Wiring Master Needed!!!

[Darci]

UGH!!! Well, I got to ride my baby for about 20 minutes!!! Went out of town and left it in the care of my hubby and got a phone call a few days later...the bike runs like a top, but you have a wiring issue!!!

First, it started by the turn signals not working while he was riding it. Got it home, found a blown fuse. No problem, replaced the fuse, took it out and boom...fuse blows again. No turn signals or light. took it back home, and another blown fuse...replaced it again and parked it.

I got back into town and took a look and found the problem. The wire that was connected to the horn melted (I am guessing due to it's proximity to the exhaust..why someone would hook it up there, I had no clue) Piece of cake, I said. I just relocate the horn and run new wires...not so easy...as I was removing the wire protector, I found that the wires had actually melted together further up They were 2 individual wires that connected to the horn, but somehow (short I am guessing) fused into one wire.


I unwrapped the electrical tape and checked the wires all the way back to the main harness. They were fused together all the way to the harness. I separated the two wires and then cut the bad part of the green wire off, soldered a new piece and heat shrinked it. I am going to Checker today to look for some orange wire (Heaven knows where I'll find orange/green wires) and then do the same to that one.

I then checked the current to both wires and found that neither one is hot. I am getting current to the fuse box, but not to these two wires. Update: Looks like the fuses didn't have a good connection. Took them out and cleaned the contacts and put them back in. Now, I get juice to the orange/green wire and my turn signals and brake light are now working. What is now bugging me is that the green wire (which is the ground for the horn) is not getting juice when I press the horn button...shouldn't my light tester light up when I press the button and touch the green wire???


I know nothing about wiring and am feeling a bit intimidated. Give me a motor to rebuild, no problem, but wiring...it has me sweatin!!

By the way, the bike is a 1980 Suzuki GS850GL.

I have attached the wiring diagram that I color coded with the wires I am having issues with.

so, now I am at a loss as to what to do next...any thoughts??

[justmount1]

i would just run your new wires from were they were good and give it a try. more than likely the exhaust melted it by the horm and they touched and melted further back. if u relocated horn and no heat then i would think u would be alright just replacing bad wires.

[bonanzadave]

wiring...it has me sweatin!!

I am at a loss as to what to do next...any thoughts??

Just by having a wire diagram you can read and being able to say you can handle solder and heat shrink puts you above most of us here. :-D

First I would take a deep breath. If its seems overwhelming take a brake and come back to it later.

Fuses are designed to protect wire and if your melting wire your fuse is too big. Get a cheap 12vdc test light. Its easier to handle than a meter and all your looking for is voltage or no voltage. Ditch those cheap plastic butt splices. Half the people going down the road with no trailer lights use those things. If your fuse block is getting voltage, and your fuse is good, your circuit should have power. Use the test light to probe around. Take care to see how the PO may have mounted the horn. If you remounted it, you may have shorted the pwr wire. Wire does not know what color it is. Just use some quality stuff that will handle the current. You may be up against re wiring that whole circuit. You can do it !! Good Luck.

[rustybronco]

Update: Looks like the fuses didn't have a good connection. Took them out and cleaned the contacts and put them back in. Now, I get juice to the orange/green wire and my turn signals and brake light are now working. What is now bugging me is that the green wire (which is the ground for the horn) is not getting juice when I press the horn button...shouldn't my light tester light up when I press the button and touch the green wire???

no...
the power goes to the horn, then through it and is grounded by the horn button. so the test light should light up until you push the button, when you push the button the voltage it is at or near 0v. i'll look at the diagram when i get home and can blow it up a little better, but this should be correct. no power out of the horn(s) when button is NOT pushed = bad horn(s). check by disconnecting wiring and hooking up horns to battery to verify.

[bonanzadave]

If your using your test light to check voltage you should have the wire end clipped to the frame and the probe end touching voltage to make it light up. The horn button and green wire is a ground circuit so ya gotta connect the test light wire end to the battery + and the probe end to the green wire to make it light. I think......

[saddlewarmer]

the horn switch completes the ground side of the circuit for the horn. you would not measure any voltage on the wire when the switch is pressed, you may be able to measure voltage on the hot side of the horn when the switch is pressed.

[rustybronco]

If your using your test light to check voltage you should have the wire end clipped to the frame and the probe end touching voltage to make it light up. The horn button and green wire is a ground circuit so ya gotta connect the test light wire end to the battery + and the probe end to the green wire to make it light. I think......

you think correct, and the horn button if working must be depressed also to check the ground side.

you may be able to measure voltage on the hot side of the horn when the switch is pressed.

you will be able to measure it.

yes what i posted is correct, kind of hard to look at it at work sometimes.

[Darci]

Just by having a wire diagram you can read and being able to say you can handle solder and heat shrink puts you above most of us here. :-D

First I would take a deep breath. If its seems overwhelming take a brake and come back to it later.

Fuses are designed to protect wire and if your melting wire your fuse is too big. Get a cheap 12vdc test light. Its easier to handle than a meter and all your looking for is voltage or no voltage. Ditch those cheap plastic butt splices. Half the people going down the road with no trailer lights use those things. If your fuse block is getting voltage, and your fuse is good, your circuit should have power. Use the test light to probe around. Take care to see how the PO may have mounted the horn. If you remounted it, you may have shorted the pwr wire. Wire does not know what color it is. Just use some quality stuff that will handle the current. You may be up against re wiring that whole circuit. You can do it !! Good Luck.

Ok, I have power to the fuse box. I know that the Orange/Green wire is my 12V supply. It is live when the ignition is on and my turn signals, breake light, dash lights all are on and working. I soldered the orange/green wire with another good wire and heat shrinked it.

The Green wire is my ground wire for the horn. It is active only when the horn button is pushed.

That tells me that the circuit is working as it should. I then hooked up both wires to the horn and when I pushed the button, got nothing. I am thinking that the horn is bad.

Now, when I hooked up the tank to test the gas gage, it is still not working. I have about a half a tank. What concerns me is that both wires going to the sending unit on the tank have current. In fact, they have current right now with the switch turned to the off position. Is that normal? If the ignition switch is off, there should be no current running through the bike, correct??

UPDATE: Guess what...my bike will start without the key. i was testing a theory...My ignition switch seems to be always "on" and i always have current running. That explains why the PO had the headlight hooked up to an after market toggle switch!!!

So, Do i replace the ignition switch, or is this another wiring issue??? Now I am feeling totally lost!!! Time to take a step back and breathe!!!

[petelardo]

You're on the right track...

You actually seem to have a pretty good grasp of what you're doing, even if you don't realize it yet...

Not that I want to start a squabble within this thread, but I feel obligated to clarify something I've read here...

Fuses are designed to protect (relatively expensive) components, lights, and devices, NOT to protect wires. Fuses and wire are cheap; tachometers, halogen bulbs, and starters are not. Wires are wires; sometimes a nightmare to replace (it helps to be proficient in spaghetti logic), but you can buy wire just about anywhere... you CAN'T always buy replacement parts, devices, or components, but again, wire is wire. Use the proper gauge, and it isn't going to keep you up at night worrying...

ALWAYS use the EXACT same rating of fuse as the schematic shows; in an EMERGENCY, you can substitute a LOWER-rated fuse, though you should do that only as a last resort. Of course, you should replace it with the proper fuse as soon as possible. Judging by what you've told us, the ONLY reason you're having this horn problem is because a PO routed the wiring too close to a heat source (the exhaust). The insulation melted on the wiring; the wires then touched; that created a short-circuit; the shin-bone is connected to the knee-bone; the knee-bone is connected to the thigh-bone; finally, the 15A fuse blew BECAUSE of the short-circuit in the horn wiring.

Test the horn by attaching a wire DIRECTLY to each terminal on the horn, then touch each wire to a battery terminal. Don't bother using a switch in the circuit; if the horn doesn't work when you have a wire going from each horn terminal to each battery terminal, you might as well replace the horn... with something LOUD, so people will think they're about to be flattened by something a LOT bigger than whatever they're driving... if the horn DOES work, set it aside, and move on to something else.

BTW, according to the schematic, you should have TWO horns on your GS... one for HI tones, and one for LOW tones... though you might want to open THAT can of worms some other time...

NOW, to help you sort this out, please keep this in mind as you work...

THERE IS PROBABLY NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WIRING HARNESS ITSELF...

...so that should NOT be your main focus, not until we have GOOD reason to suspect otherwise. Working WITHIN a wiring harness is a PAIN, so the odds are excellent that no one has tampered with it...

Therefore, your problems are MOST likely to be AT THE SWITCHES AND COMPONENTS, or at the CONNECTORS leading to them, and NOT within the wiring harness. Since your ignition now seems to be hard-wired to the battery, getting power ALL the time, chances are that someone added a jumper somewhere (providing CONSTANT power to the ignition), OR, someone intentionally re-wired things the WRONG way. The BEST place to access connectors for the entire front half of the motorcycle is inside the headlight shell, as you probably already know... which means, it is time to remove the headlight, and start applying spaghetti logic to help solve this, which is how all the best D-I-Yers troubleshoot wiring problems. In all fairness, I'm pretty sure you ALREADY have the headlight out, but I'm trying to cover all the bases for anyone who reads this thread in the future...

To be blunt, I suspect that MOST of your problems will disappear when you locate and fix the problem with the ignition switch circuit, so I would URGE you to focus on THAT area for the time being. A hard-wired ignition switch would explain the current running to the sending unit in the gas tank; find the ignition circuit problem (back-yard engineering in the ignition circuit, probably at the connectors within the headlight shell), then disconnect it. Once you do that, you'll probably kill the current running through the sending unit as well.

In a nutshell, don't get side-tracked by the horn and turnsignal issues, which I consider to be secondary to the REAL problem here. Focus on finding the problems with the ignition switch circuit; fixing THAT should help correct the OTHER problems you're having. Once the igniton circuit is working properly, you should be able to diagnose and repair the other problems you've mentioned... the headlight wired to a toggle switch... the horn short-circuit blowing the fuse... spend your time figuring out how to correct the problem with the ignition switch circuit, and everything else should fall into place...

Keep us posted...

[Darci]

You actually seem to have a pretty good grasp of what you're doing, even if you don't realize it yet...

Not that I want to start a squabble within this thread, but I feel obligated to clarify something I've read here...

Fuses are designed to protect (relatively expensive) components, lights, and devices, NOT to protect wires. Fuses and wire are cheap; tachometers, halogen bulbs, and starters are not. Wires are wires; sometimes a nightmare to replace (it helps to be proficient in spaghetti logic), but you can buy wire just about anywhere... you CAN'T always buy replacement parts, devices, or components, but again, wire is wire. Use the proper gauge, and it isn't going to keep you up at night worrying...

ALWAYS use the EXACT same rating of fuse as the schematic shows; in an EMERGENCY, you can substitute a LOWER-rated fuse, though you should do that only as a last resort. Of course, you should replace it with the proper fuse as soon as possible. Judging by what you've told us, the ONLY reason you're having this horn problem is because a PO routed the wiring too close to a heat source (the exhaust). The insulation melted on the wiring; the wires then touched; that created a short-circuit; the shin-bone is connected to the knee-bone; the knee-bone is connected to the thigh-bone; finally, the 15A fuse blew BECAUSE of the short-circuit in the horn wiring.

Test the horn by attaching a wire DIRECTLY to each terminal on the horn, then touch each wire to a battery terminal. Don't bother using a switch in the circuit; if the horn doesn't work when you have a wire going from each horn terminal to each battery terminal, you might as well replace the horn... with something LOUD, so people will think they're about to be flattened by something a LOT bigger than whatever they're driving... if the horn DOES work, set it aside, and move on to something else.

BTW, according to the schematic, you should have TWO horns on your GS... one for HI tones, and one for LOW tones... though you might want to open THAT can of worms some other time...

NOW, to help you sort this out, please keep this in mind as you work...

THERE IS PROBABLY NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WIRING HARNESS ITSELF...

...so that should NOT be your main focus, not until we have GOOD reason to suspect otherwise. Working WITHIN a wiring harness is a PAIN, so the odds are excellent that no one has tampered with it...

Therefore, your problems are MOST likely to be AT THE SWITCHES AND COMPONENTS, or at the CONNECTORS leading to them, and NOT within the wiring harness. Since your ignition now seems to be hard-wired to the battery, getting power ALL the time, chances are that someone added a jumper somewhere (providing CONSTANT power to the ignition), OR, someone intentionally re-wired things the WRONG way. The BEST place to access connectors for the entire front half of the motorcycle is inside the headlight shell, as you probably already know... which means, it is time to remove the headlight, and start applying spaghetti logic to help solve this, which is how all the best D-I-Yers troubleshoot wiring problems. In all fairness, I'm pretty sure you ALREADY have the headlight out, but I'm trying to cover all the bases for anyone who reads this thread in the future...

To be blunt, I suspect that MOST of your problems will disappear when you locate and fix the problem with the ignition switch circuit, so I would URGE you to focus on THAT area for the time being. A hard-wired ignition switch would explain the current running to the sending unit in the gas tank; find the ignition circuit problem (back-yard engineering in the ignition circuit, probably at the connectors within the headlight shell), then disconnect it. Once you do that, you'll probably kill the current running through the sending unit as well.

In a nutshell, don't get side-tracked by the horn and turnsignal issues, which I consider to be secondary to the REAL problem here. Focus on finding the problems with the ignition switch circuit; fixing THAT should help correct the OTHER problems you're having. Once the igniton circuit is working properly, you should be able to diagnose and repair the other problems you've mentioned... the headlight wired to a toggle switch... the horn short-circuit blowing the fuse... spend your time figuring out how to correct the problem with the ignition switch circuit, and everything else should fall into place...

Keep us posted...

\\/Thanks Pete...As soon as it cools off (it's 104 outside), I am going to take the headlight out again (yes, have had it out several times). Wish i would have caught the ignition switch problem earlier. What you said makes sense. As i was looking at the diagram more and more, i can see how everything is together. The one thing all these switches have in common is that blasted O/G wire. This was the wire that had all the issues.

Going back to the basics. Thanks Pete!!! I'll keep you posted!!! :-D Please say a prayer for my patience!!! :-D[-o<

[bonanzadave]

Not that I want to start a squabble within this thread, but I feel obligated to clarify something I've read here...

Fuses are designed to protect (relatively expensive) components, lights, and devices, NOT to protect wires. ...

Hey, lets squabble away....:-D

My opinion - (this kinda comes from the airplane world) When choosing a fuse or circuit breaker, wire gauge, length of a wire run and circuit breaker amperage rating is critical to prevent meltdown of the wire. Who gives a rats arse if a light bulb works or not if your dealing with an in flight wire fire. And now that I think of it I dont give a damn if my $200 krupps coffee maker blows up before the wires in my walls start burning. YES, fuses are designed to protect wires.

Now lets get that GS working. Pete is right Darci. Disconnect those horns for now and focus on that ignition.

[ifly85]

I just wanted to add a couple things. You are definitely able to do this Darci. It sounds like you have the right mindset.

Nice job with the explanation Pete. However, the wiring harness can be the problem. I would follow Pete's suggestion of focusing behind the headlight for the ignition problems, but my wiring harness above the engine was toast. Mine was misshapen and obvious, but part of it could have issues for you. Don't worry about that yet if it doesn't look bad. Just keep it in mind.

The other thing is just that once you correct the ignition problem, I suggest getting everything else back to original, like the headlight. Then everything should work as expected and troubleshooting later problems will be easier.

Good Luck, you can do it!

[Darci]

Thanks guys!!! you help is very much appreciated. Ok, this is what I found:

In the headlight, there is a block with 4 connections:

-Brown (ground?)
-Grey (ground?)
-Red (has current)
-Orange (has current)

One end of the connector plug thingy (sorry, female term ) everything is ok. On the other side, the orange and the red have fused themselves together.

Can I just cut the wires at the plug, eliminate the plug and put a male and female connectors on the ends and then plug them in together??? The plug is also melted...

[ifly85]

That is exactly how I fixed my wiring harness under the gas tank. I made sure which wires connected to which and then cut the connector out and put good individual connectors on each wire. I stayed with connectors that could be undone again if needed, so if you do that, remember to use the right ones on wires that connect (ie.. male connector on one end and female on the wire it connects to.).

Good Luck.

[Darci]

Well, there I was!!! I think I got it!!! \\/

1) I cut the wires to the plug and yep, sure enough, the plug was melted!!! Once I did that, no more constant current. I put inline connectors (blue on ground and red on hot). Essentially, i eleminated the block plug in and connected each wire individually. Now, no more constant current when the power is off.

2) hooked up the horn to the battery and no horn! Bad horn!! Yeah!!! \\/

3) hooked up the battery to the battery charger as it was pretty dead!!! Now, just got to wait until tomorrow!

On a side note, it looks like the wires that the PO had hooked up to the gas tank were for the other horn (my bike has two). But on a more positive note, the loose black wire and loose y/b wire I think, are the ones that actually go to the tank!!!

Yeah!!! \\/

Thank you to all of you that have helped me with feedback!! There was no way I could have done this without you!!!