83 Heritage, No Spark ( what have i done )

Dune19670

XS650 Enthusiast
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Hi everyone, wondering if anyone could help me please
This is my first post, of many probably.
Heres a not so brief description of what ive done to my bike.
Picked up a 83 Heritage on Monday, the bike hadn’t run for several years.
After cleaning a few electrical connections ( mainly inline fuses, which had been installed by previous owner ) i get power and all lights/horn/indicators etc work and get an excellent spark at both plugs.
Tried the started button and it just made a rapid clicking noise, tested the solenoid on another XS and that worked fine, so came to the conclusion it was the starter circuit cut off relay.
I done a little research and it seemed i could bypass the relay ?? So i got a lenght of wire with spade connections on each side and pulled the relay apart and used the two wires to link the two red wires going into the relay.
This seemed to work for a few presses of the starter and the engine turned over.
Then it stopped working and the orange headlight marker light on the dash went out too ( bulb is not blown, just doesn’t work anymore )
Now i have NO SPARK what have i done or cooked
Ps. All other electrics ( lights/indicators/ etc ) still work
Your help will be greatly appreciated
Thankyou
 
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Just to be clear, no elec. start or spark now? Both quit?
 
Thankyou for your reply
headlight/ indicators / horn etc all work.
No spark,
No orange headlight warning light in dash
No starter ( didnt work until i hard wired the relay ) now doesn’t work even if relay is hard wired
 
No orange headlight warning light in dash
You lost that when you bypassed the cutout relay. Also the headlight won't work with it bypassed.

Did you re-check fuses? You may have blown the ignition fuse. You can also try cycling the kill switch numerous times. Could be corrosion in there. Put some pics up here so we can get a feel for the bikes condition.
 
Yes the dash light went out when i bypassed the relay, but the headlight still works
I did look at the fuses which visually look ok.
I may swap all the fuses for modern blade fuses
I did try switching the kill switch on/off multiple times.
I wont be able to post any photos till tomorrow night, but its in reasonable condition for its age
 
You said the PO replaced the fuse box. Did he hack up the wiring harness or is it still in pretty good shape?
You have a wiring diagram?
 
Yeah the po has removed fuse box ( looks like a long time ago ) and replace with 4 single inline glass fuses
It looks like the side stand relay has been removed and the wires joined
The rest of the wiring looks stock and in good condition
And yes i have a wiring Diagram
 
Removing the sidestand switch and it's associated relay doesn't require a jumper wire. You simply unplug and remove them. But they are located under the left side cover. What you may be looking at under the right cover is the clutch safety relay location. That does require a jumper wire if you remove the relay .....

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bJwJB3o.jpg
 
Thankyou for the photo, thats very helpfull.
What i thought was the starter cut off relay turns out to be the clutch switch relay.
So the metal double hump relay is the starter safety relay.
The braided red wire, seen in the photo, is cut on mine ??
I’ll take some photos tomorrow so you can all see whats going on
Does this help
 
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If you mean the wire with the white cloth covering on one side, red cloth on the other, that's the main power feed wire to your main fuse. Without it, you should have no power on the bike anywhere.
 
Yes the red cloth wire is cut, but again it looks like it was done a long time ago & must be rewired another way,as i did have a spark.
Like i say, I’ll try and post some photos up later, and thankyou for all your input so far
 
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Here are a few photos ive taken today
4720A4B0-3D61-4C77-B8E2-0FC12977679C.jpeg
Photo above is where po spliced in inline fuse from main red wire
8F8BB238-C2E8-4579-ACBD-1D331680091D.jpeg
4720A4B0-3D61-4C77-B8E2-0FC12977679C.jpeg


Photo above is of sketch of the colured wires with fuses and of the piggyback blue connector
7BA78E6B-DB69-433E-AB57-1B9C8B8507C4.jpeg
photo above of where loom is opened
5E5AD778-10FC-41B2-AEEB-07744315887C.jpeg

Blue connector holding red/white wire & dark blue
6201DD95-F8EC-444A-9EBF-59F180C3EEC0.jpeg

This is the relay I jumped
50692C91-4481-4C87-AA97-A3707103DFE9.jpeg
photo above is top view
E80BF9A1-12B4-4A3E-95C9-10D4364ACB4B.jpeg
right hand side i believe side stand switch relay already jumped
E5CBE528-024A-4E28-B6F5-48698514CC94.jpeg
i hope the photos make some sense to you, if anyboby needs more info or better photos, please ask
 
7B276F8F-5254-4BAC-8A4E-57CB350E0198.jpeg
Just a quick update
It seems the lack of spark was down to the side stand relay, i removed that & tidied up all the wiring and installed a blade fuse box, removing the RLU to create space for it & now i have a spark again
 
Yes, the sidestand relay acts upon the ignition black box. It grounds it out and kills the spark. It is a normally closed type relay which means the black box is grounded out. The neutral light being on or the sidestand switch being activated (stand up) triggers the relay and opens it, allowing spark. Apparently your relay went bad and wouldn't open any more. If the relay was still good, the way yours was jumpered should have worked, and I guess it did for a while. But, there's no reason to do any of the wire jumping. You just simply have to remove the sidestand switch AND the relay. If you left the relay in place and just removed the sidestand switch, the bike would only run in neutral and die when you put it in gear. So, just remove the items and their plugs can be left dangling from the harness .....

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The only thing I still see wrong is that blue connector on the other side. Apparently, that was an attempt to bypass the headlight auto-on feature in the headlight/starter safety relay. If you clean the wires and look closely, I think you'll find the dark blue wire is actually a blue/black wire. That sends power to the headlight through the RLU and the high/low switch. Power coming into the safety relay for the headlight is on the red/yellow wire. That's the wire coming from the headlight fuse. The red/white wire you are tapped into is power for the starter. Yes, it will provide power for the headlight but now the red/yellow wire and it's fuse are doing nothing.
 
Thankyou for your in-depth & very informative reply 5twins.
Made lots of progress today, I actually got the bike to run for the first time in years
 
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