I remember reading about your potential ground issues before, but don't remember all the details. A quick search only brought up your leaky battery issue. What is going on exactly?
It's been mental.
When I got the '86 bike it had a dead battery, but still ran ok. I then put the battery from my 2000 in it, and it ran absolutely fine. Rode it to have it inspected and registered, all good. Then on the way home it started cutting out a couple of times, but just for a couple of seconds then ran fine again.
Then over the next few days, when I rode it it kept cutting out, as in no power whatsover, no ignition, nothing, but only intermittently and then come back and run ok again. I then realized it did it once hot, and on another ride it cut out completely and ground to a stop.
At that point I realized I had nothing, not even a neutral light on the dashboard when turning the key. No juice anywhere. Then after a while (cooling down) it would come back, and run perfectly, only to cut out again the same a couple of miles down the road. I parked it as I had no time to fix.
Since then I have spent a couple of days trying to find the fault, to no avail. I did find the main ground lead fell apart in my hand, but replaced it with the one from the 2000 and still no go.
After it was parked for a couple of weeks, it won't turn over at all anymore. All I get is the starter relay clicking, at best.
Battery says it's fully charged (charger won't charge it) and shows 12.25V across its poles.
Disconnected most of the electrics not needed for starting from the harness (taillight and blinkers, headlight, horn, vboost, etc) to eliminate those as possible causes.
I've run all the tests for the starter relay etc according to the Service Manual, and so far everything checks. Only weird things:
- measuring the resistance of the neutral switch gives about 125Ω when closed instead of 0Ω, yet the neutral light still comes on :confused2:
- I found that with the right-hand switch gear disconnected (kill switch/res switch/starter button/fr stoplight switch) the voltage across the battery was 12.25V, but as soon as I connected it, it would drop to under 7V. :ummm:
BUT, I tested every wire of this RH switch gear and could find nothing wrong. I also tried connecting it to my 2000 and it worked fine. Go figure..
Last, to convince myself the battery was still ok (it did build up gunk on the '-' pole twice but did work fine on the 2000 before going on the '86), I connected the brand new 2000 battery across the '86 with jump leads, and for the first time all day the '86 starter did spin, albeit very slowly and only a tiny bit.
I can't swap the starter relay as the '86 only has one (L/W) wire, but the 2000 has two. I'm thinking to remove the starter to take a good look at the brushes and all connections, and I have a HD ground wire / starter wire kit on the way.
Next I will also try swapping the RRs to check the '86 (old style) one is still working ok by testing it on the 2000. Btw I also checked that the crimp fix has been done on this '86, and the RR has a ground wire added to one of its mounting bolts straight to the battery '-'.
I've spent a lot of time testing and measuring wires in the harness and so far nothing conclusive. It's driving me mad! :bang head::bang head::bang head:
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