Electrical Problem

[pasteurized]

Well, hopefully one of the knowledgeable guys in here can help me fix a problem with my '77 GS750. I took apart and lubed the tach gauge because it was sticking. Got it all back together, fired it up, worked great. Went for the first "test" ride later that night, and got her revving up to redline (I never went past 7k or so because i didnt know what rpm it was really at). Rode a little ways, and out of nowhere my lights would dim bigtime when I applied the brake or used a turn signal. Basically anything that used any amount of power would make the lights dim badly and the bike sound like it wanted to stall. I came to a stop sign and it just died right there. No lights, nothing. Turn the key, nothing. Regardless of what I did I get no power to anything. Pushed it home (heavy SOB aint it?) and checked it out the next day. Battery completely drained. Charged it back up and went back to it today and I can't seem to find what's wrong with it. Any ideas at all? I turn the key in the switch and I get no power anywhere and no power being drawn from the battery. I'd like to get it back on the road ASAP. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide :-)

[chuckycheese]

Charge??

It sounds as though it's simply not charging the battery but it's hard to imagine how the work on your tach could affect that. It may be a problem with your charging system and just a coincidence that it happened at the same time. :roll:

[pasteurized]

Yea I doubt it has anything to do with the tach being worked on, but I thought I would mention the whole story ;-)

The problem is when I turn the key in the ignition on, I get no power from anything, and the battery is fully charged now (I charged it a few nights ago). So I'm stuck with getting no power to anything.

[Anonymous]

Could you have nicked or pinched a wire when you had the tach apart? Maybe something in the headlight circuit was shorted, or became shorted, during your ride? I could see a short damaging the charging circuit.

I'm not familiar with bike instrument clusters, but I've fixed (and committed) a few wiring errors in my time. (Like the heater blower wire in my wife's Sunfire that was laying across the edge of a piece of stamped sheet metal in the dash. Took it 3 years to wear through and blow the fuse. I had the blower motor almost out before I realized what the real problem was.)

Dave

[pasteurized]

That is what I figured it to be so I took the headlight off and examined all the wires in the harness that is located below the gauge cluster and all seems to be well there... at this point I just can't figure it out.

[Anonymous]

I had the no charge problem on my GS and it turned out it was a slight scrape on a turn signal wire that was the problem. Taped her up and shes been good since.

[pasteurized]

Hey guys... I suppose there was a little confusion as to what the problem is. I got no power from the battery at all. No matter what. So, after tearing apart all sorts of wiring and giving up on it for the night, i decided to do what I should have done first... look at the battery. Sure enough, the positive wire had broken off and made intermittant (and eventually, no) connection. I feel like the dumbest person on earth. But at the same time, happy that nothing expensive broke :-)

Thanks for the help guys!

[Anonymous]

Dumbest person on earth? No way - that's MY title. I'm glad you found the problem, though, despite our well-meaning misdirection.

Dave

[Anonymous]

Ok, so now that you've found that problem, double check that you didn't fry the stator or R/R. Techincally, you should've been able to ride it home without a battery connected (without stalling it first of course, hehe).
Go through the stator papers and make sure nothing bad happened. A R/R with nowhere to dump power is not a happy camper.

[SqDancerLynn1]

Adhear to the KISS principal

keep it simple stupid