There is hope for my lights yet.

T

tshadow6

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While I was cutting out the rigged fuse holders to install the new correct fuse box, my gauge lights came on when the wires touched the frame. However, once the fuse box was installed I still don't have electrics. I guess I'll have to trace the wiring out.
 
Electrics can be frustating. Have meter, will solve! Good hunting!
 
I have a multi meter and a continuity tester. A friend of mine told me to start at the positive wire from the battery and go from there. What do you think?
 
Good Idea. Have paper and pencil handy to document your wireing. Is it a factory loom, hacked up PO special, or new custom wires?
 
The wiring harness is original. Someone in the past cut out the factory fuse box and rigged them up individually, which I thought was the cause of my electric problems. I have a good ground, the battery is strong.
 
tshadow6 said:
While I was cutting out the rigged fuse holders to install the new correct fuse box, my gauge lights came on when the wires touched the frame. However, once the fuse box was installed I still don't have electrics. I guess I'll have to trace the wiring out.
Click to expand...

came on when touching ground, therefore your meter lamps don't have a ground
 
jayel said:
came on when touching ground, therefore your meter lamps don't have a ground
Click to expand...

^ exactly.
If it hit the frame (earthed) and things 'worked' then you have a missing ground somewhere.
Do you know which wire hit the frame? Start there. Well, actually, start anywhere and check all the wiring, no two ways about it really.

Peter
 
I used my continuity tester today. The outside line of the 20 amp main fuse has juice, but not the inside line. Both the headlight and ignition inside line have juice, not the outside lines. The signal line is good. Should I start tracing the problem lines throughout the frame to find the problem? I know I need the main fuse and ignition to start the bike, which is my first goal.
 
Also sounds like floating ground in instrument lighting. Grounding one line would allow current to flow thru a bulb, to common/floating ground, back up thru another bulb, then to grounded wire...
 
"Floating ground"? is that another name for loose wire? I have some electrical experience from making my own extension cords and basic two wire fan installations.
 
Loose wire, or bad connection. Inside the headlight, check the black wires (assuming this is a stock bike). They all join at large multi-socket connectors, tied to black wires that go to ground. These connections may be good, but the master black wires may not be grounded. They usually go back thru the harness to the frame.
 
Starting at the headlight sounds like a good idea. Thank you for the advice. I'll keep folks posted with pictures (we all love pictures of motorcycles).
 
Well, I checked the wiring inside my headlight. Everything looks good. Nothing is loose, nothing is seems out of order. Am I supposed to cut open the outer insulation in order to trace out the wiring? I am really getting frustrated over this.
 
if thats what it takes, what wire hit the frame to ground it? if you know, trace that. if not take it back to that point when you had a cluster of wires exposed and see if you can re-create it and locate your problem.
 
Can a problem with one wire cause problems for the whole bike? I just traced out my main line, everything looked well connected but no juice. Could one of the many black wires in the headlamp be the cause of my problem? Thank you for the advice.
 
Sure, all the black wires need to be grounded. They multi-plug into black wires in the harness that eventually ground to the frame and battery. You may find broken/cut wires, damaged/corroded grounding lugs, poor/corroded/missing lug connections to frame. Most electrical advise on this forum recommends thoroughly inspecting and cleaning all connectors, including grounding lugs. Sage advice considering the age of these machines. Poor/missing grounds, floating grounds, ground loops, intermittant grounds, hi-resistance grounds, can lead to all sorts of bizarre things.

Back when the first prototype fibreglass Corvette was built, nothing worked right. They used assembly line workers, who did things the way they were taught, and screwed the grounding lugs into the fibreglass...
 
I found one black wire that did not ground to 00.0 on my multimeter. The loose wire and empty mult-plug is the one. Could that be the problem? Every other black wire checked out to 00.0 I taped the good ones in red. Thank you.
 

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Busy place in there, isn't it? Both of those wires pass thru the backside of the headlight shell, the brass bullet probably goes up to the instruments, needs to plug into a ground. The other connector probably goes back into the harness, and that may be your target. A simple test would be to tie a long jumper from battery ground to the black wires, see if anything changes...
 

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