[darkhorse85]

I've never had to deal with wiring before, and this is my first project.
However, i am ready to learn...and i just ran into a situation which i need to find a short.
...i think.

ive been impatient...my glasspack muffler came today for my streetfighter project and i put everything back on to hear the bike run. (she hasnt ran in almost 5 weeks). So, i had a battery charger on while i was going to attempt to start her up and things were goin as expected.. She was crankin.

After about 5-10 seconds of cranking, however, i noticed smoke comin from the nest of wiring near the front of the bike (under the handlebars). Shit Shit Shit. i turned off the key,, and took off the gas tank to see if i could locate the wire.........i cannot.

Now, when i turn the key, im not getting power to anything.

Is this the symptom of a wiring short circuit? This is the first time ive seen this sort of thing. :Stupid:
She's an '88 Ninja 600R, btw. I was so close to hearing it run finally, and now this. Any ideas on what to do?
Please help.
-Cole

 

[chandler]

heres a trick i use in working at my car dealership that not many people know about.

a short is a positive wire that has met a ground(there really is no such thing as a short to groung on a ground circuit cus basically your making it another ground and helping it). on a electrical circuit you start with a battery then a fuse then a switch then a load (light?) then a ground. so a short is a wire that has met the ground before the load. a bad way to find it is to put a paperclip in the fuse spot and check for smoke. (few people know electricity works on smoke, you let the smoke out you lose the electricity j/k) another way to test is to get a sealed bulb (old bikes had them, old cars and trucks) get two pieces of wire and put the the bulb where the fuse was. you have now made a circuit you have the battery the load(your sealed beam) and the ground(the short) if the light comes on you have a constant short. if you wiggle your harness and the light goes out then you just took away the ground(short) so start looking closer. if you unplug things and the light goes out you found the short such as headlight, rectifier, starter. this works good for intermittant shorts that are hard to find. plug in your light in the fuse holes and if the light is off then wiggle wires and if it comes on you just made the short happen.

basic electrical but comes in really handy on a van. you can use long wires and set it in the middle pointed at the ceiling and start wiggling and just look up to see if you make the short happen.

hope this helps

:bsmeter:

 

[darkhorse85]

but if there was smoke does that mean that i fried something?

some wires?

ill give this lightbulb in the fuse a try, but which fuse slot do i use? all of them? im still slightly confused as to what is the problem.

 

[dogbreath]

You could also buy a multimeter or a test light. You won't spend over 30 bucks and it will work even better.

Basically, you're looking for which circuit (each fuse slot is a different circuit) is still drawing power, even when that circuit is supposed to be off.
Smoke might mean an electrical device is fried.

 

[Dudad]

check your fuses too, if you fried the maid fuse you get power to nothing as well

 

[darkhorse85]

ahhhhhhhhhh.

ok, so i was playin with an indicator light on the 4 fuses in the little fuse box thingy and two of the fuses lit up bright with the key in the off position, and all four lit up very dimly when the key was turned to 'on.'

After being confused about that one for a while, i started unplugging all components individually to see if one of those two bright fuses would go out, but none did. Then i came to a component connected directly after the positive node of the battery. There was a covered 30A fuse inside of it which was blown.

ta da!

replaced it and the engine cranked over, but when i plugged in the gauges to the harness and flip the key to 'ON', this 30A main fuse pops. I'm still trying to figure it out, but i gotta go pick up some more 30A fuses tomorrow to play with.
See, i took out the thermostat and fuel gauges from the gauge cluster to make it fit closer to the handlebars, and perhaps those free wires have something to do with it.

we shall see.
want pics?

 

[dogbreath]

The short circuit is blowing your main fuse.
The basic way to do it is to unplug components one at a time until the fuse no longer blows when the key goes on. This requires a lot of extra fuses, though...

Your other choice is to use the short hunting method we described above to figure out which circuit is drawing power when it's not supposed to.
Whatever it is, it's a bad fucken short.

 

[darkhorse85]

thanks for the help, haelo. i REALLY appreciate it. :cfrocks:
ill finally be able to hear what my bike sounds like tomorrow.

here are some pics of what im dealing with:
those three loose wires on each side of the gauges went to the temp and fuel gauges. The fuse doesnt pop until i plug in the gauges to the harness with those white connectors.

 

[chandler]

i was joking about the smoke. but unplug your blown fuse and install a test light put the pointy end in one hole of the fuse spot and put a paperclip on the other end of the light at the clamp and put it in the other hole. turn the key on. and the test light will light. then unlug or wiggle wires till it goes out. then you have your problem.

 

[darkhorse85]

whoa, heh.

ok, so i picked up some more fuses, and i tried doing that light in the main fuse slot thing with the gauges plugged in, and after a while of that i grabbed the gauge harness and felt something hot.

looked at it and behold! a melted section of tape surrounding an exposed wire:
(can you spot it?)

talk about luck that i grabbed it right there.
anyway, now im working on starting the bike.
thanks again.

 

[dogbreath]

Looks like all your wiring is a little worn out and crusty.

 

[darkhorse85]

crusty isnt really the word i would use...

more like gooey and melted.
needless to say, i just cut out and replaced a lot of wires. it's all good now.
but another problem: my headlight isnt working.

tomorrow...