Electrical woes - low voltage, starting issues, etc.

[exzachtly1]

I recently had my bike completely apart so took the opportunity to really clean all of the electrical connections. It's certainly easier when your're holding the harness in your hand and can do a bunch of connections at the same time. I took posplayr's advice on the naval jelly. Gooped it on, waited 10 minutes, then flushed with water. I used a WaterPik (that I just so happened to have). This worked extremely will, especially where the terminals are encased in a plastic block connector. I did not de-pin all of the connectors, but did de-pin one after the cleaning and was satisfied with the process. Naval Jelly is amazing stuff. The WaterPik makes a mess. Wear gloves and goggles.

After flushing with water, I used compressed air to dry all connectors, then spayed all with electrical contact spray, which (I think) helps evaporate any leftover water. Then a final light touch of deoxit on all. Did the same treatment with every switch on the pike that I could get apart.

This can be done with the wires on the bike. Hold a towel around the connector and get the waterpik in there. Towel to contain the mess. Very please with the results.

Cool, thanks for the tips. I have never tried using naval jelly I might have to give that a shot. Sounds like it would be faster than vinegar, and easier to do with parts on the bike (can't vinegar soak something that's attached to the bike!). I don't own a waterpik though, would have to get my hands on one of those I guess.

[exzachtly1]

Another thing I found, is that there is an incorrectly sized fuse in the "Head" fuse slot... it has a 20 amp installed but calls for 10 amp:



Could this have been the cause of the fried R/R connector? I tried to trace the wiring diagram to understand what this fuse controls but I got confused

Here is some before/after of the fuse box after about 10 hours of vinegar soak and some light scrubbing:


To my untrained eye, this seems a hell of a lot cleaner. Is it clean enough? I plan to spray with some deoxit, put the correct fuse in the 10A slot, and probably re-wire the positive battery wire. The connectors and wire are not in the greatest shape.

[exzachtly1]

Welp I've somehow managed to make it worse. I put everything back together because I wanted to see if replacing all those terminals for the grounds and cleaning up the fuse box helped... but now I am getting NO power to anything except my instrument cluster. Rear lights not working, starter not working, headlight not working... I have not touched anything else besides the fusebox, battery area, grounds connections for the R/R, etc.

The only things I am suspecting are either a bad crimp on one of the new terminals (I was careful here to do it well!), bad fuse (they all look fine), or put something back together wrong (I've triple checked everything). Or maybe the battery is just dying, I will take it to be tested as soon as I can.

I have new fuses coming tomorrow, so I plan to replace all of them just in case but they certainly don't look blown or anything.

Now, in the past there was an issue one time where this happened. I basically just moved the battery into position (after having it pulled out at an angle to connect everything) and it started working again. Always chalked that event up to there just being a dirty or loose connection, or a short somewhere... that is part of why I am doing what I'm doing now. I know there are problems. But I'm wondering if that could mean an issue somewhere else? Maybe in the main battery cables? I can't understand why all this work I did would make things worse unless I just fudged something or knocked something else loose that was hanging on the ragged edge already.

Happy to take suggestions... in the meantime I will continue to go over everything to make sure I didn't miss something.

Edit: Used the multi meter to check continuity between all the ground wires, fuses, and battery wires. Everything checked out. So I don't think I have a problem in any of my new connections or the fuses...

[Gorminrider]

and am soaking the entire unit + connectors in a vinegar bath. Then I will neutralize the acid with baking soda+water. Does that sound like a good method? Hoping that this will do the trick

Try adding salt to the vinegar. Works A1 to brighten up wire and connectors.

[Gorminrider]

advice on how to change it? Should I just eliminate it and ground it to the frame instead of the battery?

looking at the pictures, you have a lot of funk from a previous owner...the 20 amp fuse at headlights indicates they had trouble on that circuit and the larger fuse may have exacerbated them.

The motorcycle's original ground system had the thick cable attached to the engine, with two smaller ground wires (Black/white stripe) coming out of the harness -one at front one at rear-attached to the frame...(NOT the forks) The added one...I can't swear to it per your "L" without looking at the particular diagram but my gs650G has no such thing and it sure looks like "funk" to me....perhaps the PO chopped the other off at the harness.

The battery box is not the worst place to connect a (B/W) ground wire but connection should be rust free under a tight bolt...

You can disconnect one fuse at a time and see if that helps your large voltage drops...and thereby narrows down bad circuits.

Your regulator and stator are suspects. The old originals could blow SCR or diodes and allow power BACK into a stator. Which is pretty close to a dead short at the MAIN 15amp fuse, but not always.... Disconnect the regulator and see if that helps- the bike can run on a battery alone for a little while.

ABOVE ALL consult your wiring diagram and try to figure out what the Previous owner was "fixing" with the additional? wires and black tape. Black tape can be ok for ceertain purposes but good 3m black tape will not unravel so easily and is worth the xtra $...

A coloured wiring diagram can help. go here

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/images/gs650wiring.html

[exzachtly1]

looking at the pictures, you have a lot of funk from a previous owner...the 20 amp fuse at headlights indicates they had trouble on that circuit and the larger fuse may have exacerbated them.

The motorcycle's original ground system had the thick cable attached to the engine, with two smaller ground wires (Black/white stripe) coming out of the harness -one at front one at rear-attached to the frame...(NOT the forks) The added one...I can't swear to it per your "L" without looking at the particular diagram but my gs650G has no such thing and it sure looks like "funk" to me....perhaps the PO chopped the other off at the harness.

The battery box is not the worst place to connect a (B/W) ground wire but connection should be rust free under a tight bolt...

You can disconnect one fuse at a time and see if that helps your large voltage drops...and thereby narrows down bad circuits.

Your regulator and stator are suspects. The old originals could blow SCR or diodes and allow power BACK into a stator. Which is pretty close to a dead short at the MAIN 15amp fuse, but not always.... Disconnect the regulator and see if that helps- the bike can run on a battery alone for a little while.

ABOVE ALL consult your wiring diagram and try to figure out what the Previous owner was "fixing" with the additional? wires and black tape. Black tape can be ok for ceertain purposes but good 3m black tape will not unravel so easily and is worth the xtra $...

A coloured wiring diagram can help. go here
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...650wiring.html

Thanks. I completely agree with your assessment. Some of this stuff just seems so weird and it's hard for me to know what was hacked and what is original, since I've only ever worked on this one bike (no frame of reference). This bike definitely seems to have had a fair share of hacking from previous owners. I am going to try all of your suggestions.... looking at the wiring diagram now it appears that the original frame grounds come out near the headlights and tail lights? I will look for those. I would like to eliminate that extra ground wire if I can - assuming the original grounds are still in tact and it's safe to do so?

New fuses are arriving today. I will try playing with those.

I'm still learning how to use the multi meter. My next goal will be to figure out how to actually trace where voltage is being lost. Electrical circuits confuse me but... the more I read the more it is setting in haha

[exzachtly1]

I checked the voltage at the fuse box. Finally found a video that helped me understand how to do that - I placed the negative lead on the negative battery terminal, then probed each end of all the fuses with the positive lead. I read 12.7v at the MAIN and POWER fuses - the ones that are supplied by the red wire feeding the fuse block. All of the other fuses were dead, no power. Now - what are the next steps to try to trace where I'm losing power? I feel like I'm missing something silly if they are all dead...?

[posplayr]

The only fuse that is HOT with key OFF is the Main.

You need to turn on the key to power all other circuits.

This is all self explanatory in the factory schematic.

[exzachtly1]

The only fuse that is HOT with key OFF is the Main.

You need to turn on the key to power all other circuits.

This is all self explanatory in the factory schematic.

OK - got it. with the key on i have voltage at all fuses. unfortunately not sure how to troubleshoot from here. I'll keep studying I guess and hopefully something will dawn on me. Thanks for all the help so far. Bummed because I have no idea how anything I did would have wound me up here... I thought I was only making improvements but I must have upset something that was just on the edge... maybe a short somewhere in a wire near the battery area, idk. Clearly something got moved or nudged just enough to kill it... the fact that I've seen this behavior once or twice before makes me feel like that is probably the case, it just kinda corrected itself before.

[posplayr]

Especially now that you say you have the fuse box hot, I would guess you lost a ground.

There are usually two ring lugs on the B/W connected to the harness. This is the backbone of the grounding for all devices connected to the harness.

You have to have at one of these B/W Ring lug at a common point on the metal side cover (under solenoid mounting bolt) or where your R/R is mounted to include:

• B/W Ring Lug
• Battery (-)
• R/R (-)
• FOR GOOD MEASURE Frame ground.

If you do this, that is a Single Point Ground (SPG). It also happens to be the picture I posted before.

The other B/W ring lug is typically going to the front of the battery box to pickup return currents from the battery box (if used as a ground).

[exzachtly1]

Cool, I will have some time to spend a little quality time tonight. I am going to try to locate all these ground wires and see if I can reproduce what you're saying. I may also take a video or something to show you how everything is set up on my bike once I have an understanding of exactly what I'm looking at. I think that will help the conversation, because it's pretty clear that a few things have been changed by the PO and they are tripping me up a bit.

If you do this, that is a Single Point Ground (SPG). It also happens to be the picture I posted before.

I see a link that you posted to (which I am studying), but I don't see any pictures in that thread or in this one? Pictures would definitely be helpful. But your descriptions are very good, I will do my best to follow them.

Finally, in your thread regarding the SPG approach - you mention using 14 AWG wire for the ground wires "all less than 1' using 14 AWG ground wire"
Is it okay to use 16 AWG? It's what I have on hand. Happy to go buy some 14 AWG if that is best but figured I would ask the question.

[posplayr]

https://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?259064-Electrical-woes-low-voltage-starting-issues-etc&p=2613241#post2613241

[exzachtly1]

https://www.thegsresources.com/_foru...41#post2613241

Sorry, I must be missing something or misunderstanding you. That is the post I was referring to but I don't see any photos, in that post or in the post you link to from there... something glitchy with forum images in my browser? idk...

here is what i see:

Untitled.jpg

If i check the source in the browser devtools I can see there is an <img> tag there pointing to:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/picture.php?albumid=1998&pictureid=10607

But that returns a 1x1 pixel image...

Edit: is it possible that the album you are linking to is some kind of private album I don't have permissions to see? Do I need to be your friend or something?

[posplayr]

Must be your browser. I logged out and see everything Win7 chrome.

[exzachtly1]

Must be your browser. I logged out and see everything Win7 chrome.

Damn, I've tried firefox, chrome, edge, and internet explorer on two different computers and also on my phone, I don't see images on any of them (logged our or logged in).

Try an incognito window without being logged in? Maybe they are cached for you somehow?

Can anyone else confirm whether they see images in that post? It sure would be helpful to be able to see these