Electrical issues and a brake question, need help

[kyraeus]

So..

I'm a noob, I know this. I've done minor work on both starter circuits and brakes on cars before. Nothing serious mind you, I'm no gearhead. But I've dabbled. Enough to be dangerous anyway.

That said, I went to do a starter solenoid replacement because the one on the bike I just got was looking pretty ragged (fuses' plastic kinda gross, connections looking rough, etc). Bike started and ran at that point. Admittedly a little rough, but I think that's due to something in the kickstand switch possibly.

Now, after replacement of the solenoid with new 20 amp fuses (as per the original one, although someone had jammed a tiny fuse in place of the standard size on one side on the 'old' solenoid), the bike won't even power up ( no headlights, signals, etc.). The starter however, DOES work when you jump it across the screw heads on the new solenoid. (or at least has once. I tested that when I initially put the new one on, and the starter motor DID turn over, although I got no farther)

I've tried changing back to the old solenoid, old AND new solenoid with new fuses, etc. battery appears to still be holding a charge (it's new), I'm thinking maybe there's just a break in the electricals, or something I did popped a wire out elsewhere. Can anyone give me a runthrough on what to look for, or maybe some helpful places to check?

Beyond that, I have one other issue I ran into while working on the front brake caliper. Can anyone give a quick step by step on reconnecting the brake line to the caliper? the old one was busted and the bike came with it off the frame. I have the new one with new pads installed and mounted on the bike, just need from connecting the brake line onward.

Thanks guys!
Dazed and confused.

[kyraeus]

Side note, I just realized the troubleshooting or maintenance sections are probably a better place for this, if a mod could possibly toss this one over that way.

[5th_bike]

Um, do you have a battery charger? a couple starts will drain your battery so you should keep it charged.

Then, the maintenance manual has electrical circuit diagrams.

And that's it from me. Sorry, never worked on the starter solenoid.

[alantf]

[attachment=0:3hq2meen]7.jpg[/attachment:3hq2meen]

This is the solenoid circuit. Try checking out the components shown. Remember, all a solenoid is, is a way of closing a high power circuit (80 amps to the starter motor, in this case) by means of a low power circuit. Seems like one of the safety switches is malfunctioning (starter switch, clutch switch, side stand switch) With the clutch pulled in, and the starter button pressed, get someone to put your voltmeter from each solenoid low power terminal to earth (that's because I don't know which is the live side) I guess that there'll be no voltage, which shows that it's a fault on the low power side. You'll find more detailed drawings in the on line manual.

[kyraeus]

Thanks for the good advice. At this point I basically ripped off all the covers, seat, and pulled nonessential components off the frame, except for the gas tank, and that'll probably be next. The rest needed painted or worked on for comfort later anyway, and were only getting in the way of troubleshooting.

As far as the electrical issue, I'm going to take a look at all the switches as I go through this, but I also took a suggestion from other things I've seen on the forums here, and pulled out the wiring in the headlight bell after a bit of an argument with the rusted screws holding it in.



As you can KIND OF see above, they weren't in great shape and took some elbow grease to get out, and the underside of the bell, as well as inside the ring of the bell is kinda rusted out. might be a point for replacement or sanding later for my own peace of mind. Those screws are getting replaced asap.

It basically looks like the housing was at one point the home for a family of spiders. Note that the below is AFTER having removed a giant wad of spiderweb from the back of the lamp and the wiring.





So I'm thinking the wiring issue MAY be resolved right here with any luck. There weren't any blown fuses either on the solenoid master fuse relay, or in the fusebox (which surprised me at least the headlamp ones weren't blown.).

If anyone has suggestions of wiring layouts I can implement that would long-term resolve this problem, I'm all ears, since I've seen a LOT of people describing the wires in the bell as a well-known short point. As well, if you can suggest either KNOWLEDGEABLE places I can go to hand staff a piece of the mounting hardware (bolts/etc) and have them hand me a replacement, since lowe's/home depot either don't have a lot of these standard, or I have to deal with 18 year old dropouts from college who have worked on their vehicles even less than I have.

[Water Warrior 2]

You can just use a wire brush to remove the rust on the nasty screws.
Carefully check the wiring in the headlight bucket for signs of wear due to vibration. Make sure all the connectors fit tightly. Actually it might be a good idea to pull apart some connectors to inspect them for corrosion or signs of a burnt spot due to a bad connection.
Don't be afraid to add a couple or 3 extra zip ties to secure the wiring in the bucket. Duct tape will also help to secure the wiring to the inside surface of the bucket. This might sound like overkill but you don't want to go in there on a regular basis.
Just for peace of mind you might want to replace the headlight bulb with a new one.
I'm done spending your time and $ for a while. LOL.

[kyraeus]

Hey, I'm happy with it. this thing looked pretty bad once you cracked it open and once I started getting into actually SEEING what the bike looked like from the inside. A lot of bolts were rusted when I took all the panels off, the headlight housing almost completely DIDN'T WANT TO OPEN AT ALL, and if I ever want it to look like new, or close, I have a lot of work to do over time.

Now the fun part for you guys, because you get to laugh at me.

For all of this mess I went through, digging half the bike apart (which I needed to do anyway on second inspection, because of needing painted, and because of just general maintenance needed on a years-garaged bike), ripping apart nearly all the electrical connections... I had a friend who knows bikes a bit better than me come over.

He's always had a theory that with a certain amount of alcohol, comes the magical skills of a master mechanic.

Normally, I wouldn't agree with this. But he came over bearing vodka, and a gleam in his eye. After turning the bike over end to end, looking at all the connections, checking wires a few moments for a cursory inspection, he calmly, quietly, flipped the two main cables I had hooked up to the solenoid, turned the key, and smiled silently at me while the turn signals flashed and the neutral light came on.

Ever had a moment where you want to murder someone? Yeah.

So note to everyone out there: Those damn cables look like they belong in the wrong places. Check the simple things before inexperience and simple idiot mistakes make you spend 50-100 replacing components. In my case, I needed them anyway, thankfully. This bike really needed a refurb, and it got one because of this.

As a side, the bike's really running nice. I slapped the inline fuel filter on, got a couple brake washers in on the brake line and hooked that up today, and started primering one of the side panels to get ready to paint them shortly. Here's the to-do list for anyone interested:

1. Primer and Paint side panels and wheel hubs, general cleanup on the frame and mounted components.
2. Complete brake bleeding (still need a tube for the bleeder valve for this)
3. Rewire headlight bell, give housing a good brush down (bad rust spot on bottom of this.), possibly spray on some anti-rust paint on the ring.
4. Find a clip for the fuel hose's new loop and filter to mount to frame next to rectifier (pref rubber coated like the clips for the electricals?)
5. Complete paint job and sanding coats, cover in clearcoat for a nice gloss.
6. Tank to be done later, or possibly waiting till I can afford a replacement tank without dents to paint properly. (also because then I have some painting experience under my belt)
7. Find a notary, do title, tags, and get inspection (hopefully tuesday or wednesday, since I have tires coming to replace the dry-rotted ones on there now)
8. Air filter work and oil change with new filters most likely to come. 3 oil filters for 8 bucks was a great deal. I love how parts are fairly cheap on this bike. Possibly mirrors if they decide to be shitty about the little bit of rust spot on the bottom of them come inspection. (it's like 12 bucks for a replacement)

Whew!

Also, I have the chain, 16t sprocket, and some other minor parts to upgrade later once it's running and reg'd. I want a chance to run it around a bit first, make sure everything is shipshape and THEN I'll mess with those a bit.

Also, Water Warrior, your suggestion of caution when messing with the front brake turned out to be prophetic as hell. I took a good chunk outta the back of my right thumb while I was tightening the bolt after tossing on the crush washers. I'm hoping that little bit of pain now, and the care I'm going to be turning to bleeding and checking condition on the line, turns out to save me whole lot MORE pain in the future when my brakes run perfectly when I really need them.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by kyraeus

he calmly, quietly, flipped the two main cables I had hooked up to the solenoid, turned the key, and smiled silently at me while the turn signals flashed and the neutral light came on.

Can you explain exactly what you mean, because I don't quite understand? So long as the two HT (thick) cables go to the two HT terminals (and I can't see where else they'd fit) then it shouldn't matter which way round they go. All that happens when you energise the coil is that the main contact closes and shorts the two cables together, allowing power to flow to the starter motor. :??:

[kyraeus]

That's honestly what I thought. Until he did that. Apparently, either I angered the ghost in the machine, or somehow he managed to do something I didn't see or some such, because it literally hasn't mis-started or failed to turn on since. Quite literally all I saw him do besides taking a good solid look at the electricals was switch the order of the two main leads off that solenoid. Now note, with them backwards, they WOULD short if you slapped a screwdriver on them. Just the bike itself (headlights, signals, lamps) weren't getting any power. So I'm counting that one as a quirk, and just saying 'Oh, well.. at least now I know it's picky like that'.

[mole2]

Originally Posted by alantf

Can you explain exactly what you mean, because I don't quite understand? So long as the two HT (thick) cables go to the two HT terminals (and I can't see where else they'd fit) then it shouldn't matter which way round they go. All that happens when you energise the coil is that the main contact closes and shorts the two cables together, allowing power to flow to the starter motor. :??:

I don't know about this particular relay but some relays have the hot side of the secondary winding tapped off of the battery cable side of the primary contacts internally. The negative is then used as the switch side make/break. If you have the cables reversed there is no positive feed for the secondary winding. That could be the case here.