Replaced handlebars...now electric start, headlight, and brake light do not work

Hi everyone I am new to this forum and I have a pretty hard to solve problem (for me atleast). Recently I switched my stock handlebars to clubman bars and when i went to fire up the bike there was nothing to the electric start. So, I kickstarted the bike no problem but noticed that the headlight only ran when the bike was on and then died out shortly after the engine was cut off (and has been dead ever since, but the bulb is not burnt out). Also the brake light is not activated when either brake is pressed, and I have replaced all 10amp fuses to ensure that it is not the problem. The lights and electric start were in perfect working order before I replaced the handlebars...any ideas or solutions as to what this could be???

Thanks!

Broken or loose wires/solder connections in the RH switch housing. When you removed the screws, you probably had to separate the housings far enough to clear the throttle tube/cable boss. If the wires were tight enough inside one could have pulled loose, and on reassembly it made contact, but amperage draw (electrical heat), and vibes likely broke a conection. Get a soldering iron and some rosin core solder (1 option: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062711 ).

A keen eye and a steady hand will help too

As mentioned, during your swap you could have damaged some wiring. Need to pull the housings apart and check. Maybe pinched a wire when remounting the housings.
On the e start the button grounds the circuit to work, the horn buttons grounds too. Are the new pars painted or powder coated? If so you lost the ground for the bars. Paint or powder are electrical insulators, if bars are black then you need to sand off the color under the housings to clean bare metal.
Leo

thanks guys! I will be trying both methods today and I will update soon...


and yes the bars are black! however the horn does work.

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The horn would work. The right switch assembly grounds to and through the bars when mounted over to the left switch assembly. A ground wire in the left assembly runs to the headlight to establish the ground for both switch pods. If you look in the bottom half of both pods, you'll see a metal clip that clamps the wires in where they enter. That clip also contacts the bars when the assembly is mounted and transfers the ground connection. You'll need to clean the paint off the bars where that clip makes contact. You'll need to do this on BOTH assemblies.

So, I sanded down the bars, checked for wire slip ups, and made sure everything was connected. The sanding allowed the electric start to ground, so that works...However the headlight and brake lights still do not work....and somehow I don't know if I missed it before but the horn DOES NOT work contrary to my first statement (kind of like my headlight, worked for about an hour after installation and now it no longer works).

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You're dealing with a 30+ year old bike here. If you haven't done so, you'll need to completely go through the entire wiring harness, cleaning all the wires and connections and fixing any rubbed bare wires. If you don't do so, you will continue to have problems like you're having, one after another. There are some areas of your bike you can cut corners on (for instance, paint it with a brush), this isn't one of them. And you have to do a good job on your cleaning too. You can't just polish the tips of the crimps in the plugs and call it good (a guy across town is cleaning his wiring in this manner and, frankly, I don't hold out much hope for that bike). You have to remove the crimps from the plugs and thoroughly clean them. Lots of work, I know, but necessary.

There are two ways Yamaha grounded the bars. One is as 5twins mentioned, a wire from the left switch housing down into the headlight bucket where it attached to the harness ground.
The earlier models the ground path was from the bars through the risers, where a wire was attached under the nut on the riser bolt. This wire ran around to one of the top tree clamp bolt. Where it grounded to the frame through the trees, stem and bearings. Not the best way but it did work.
Either way you need good clean connections between both switch housings and bars.
When you changed the bars you may have pulled the wire hard enough so that some of the connections in the headlight bucket came partially apart and after a few miles came completely apart.
Not hard to pull the headlight and check.
I also agree with 5twins about a thorough cleaning of every connection on the bike. While apart for cleaning you can tighten each connection by gently squeezing each female part so it fit tighter on the male part.
Leo

Alright guys...cleaned all the wires, tightened everything up, and nothing worked...however after being at my wits end I got some advice from a local shop owner and popped out the fuses box once more. The new fuses had slid out of their connections during riding vibration and now everything is secure and working! Some times the simplest things that you check over and over thinking they are 100% solved, are the problem...ha learned my lesson to pay attention to detail...

THANKS EVERYONE!

much appreciated.

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Something else to keep in mind here is that the original glass fuses used in these weren't the common 1 1/4" long ones you'll find readily available at the auto parts store. They were 1", or more correctly, 25mm long fuses. A 1 1/4" replacement will fit in but not make full contact with the clips. A little sliding either way and as you've discovered, you can lose contact and the connection.

Might be a good time to replace that crappy old fuse box with an updated blade type fuse box or inline fuse holders.
Glass fuses were crap when they were state of the art.
Leo