Voltage Regulator Clicking When Connecting Battery

[Jmturano]

I’ve got a ‘75 XS650. It was running perfectly the last two years and out of nowhere I realized there seemed to be a draw from the battery when I had the bike parked. Next morning the battery was completely dead. I got it on the lift and starting looking for a short in the easy spots. I disconnected the battery and upon reconnecting I heard a clicking come from the regulator. The clicking stops when I unplug it from the rectifier (everything else still plugged in).

Anyone have advice on where to start before I really start digging? Should I replace the regulator? Is this a symptom of another component in the charging system failing? Is this more than likely a short somewhere else? Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

 

[gggGary]

Anytime weird things go on in the electrical system I open the headlight bucket and carefully check all the wires where they pass through the grommets in the headlight shell. While there you can unplug, plug wires to the iggy switch, seeing if that changes things at the regulator.

You can see the power to the regulator comes in from the iggy switch on the Brown wire.

 

[Jmturano]

Thank you Gary! I’ll give this a shot tomorrow and follow up with whether or not I can get it to work.

 

[gggGary]

A 75 wiring diagram from 650skull, not sure which market this diagram is intended for, but all markets were very similar back in 75.