main Fuse keeps blowing

[Endopotential]

Then take one wire and solder the other end to the "tip" part of a 60W incandescent light bulb

Dang mr72, I'm learning tons from your posts.  Thanks!

I'm amazed with your wealth of electrical knowledge that your carbs are still tormenting you! 
I say get that 500F and get it over with 

Best wishes to everyone, for all our lonely garage projects!

[mr72]

Dang mr72, I'm learning tons from your posts.  Thanks!

I'm glad someone finds it helpful

I'm amazed with your wealth of electrical knowledge that your carbs are still tormenting you! 

If the carbs were electric, I'd have them fixed by now. My friend who is very knowledgeable about motorcycles (he has, among probably a dozen bikes, a '90s Bandit 1200 with the same carbs) advised me strongly against buying a carbureted motorcycle. He flatly told me that even for experts they are a complicated enigma that may rarely if ever run right unless the entire carburetor is brand new.

Anyway, I figured, how hard can it be? I'm no fool. I can follow instructions and do complicated detailed things. But the problem really is incomplete information. There's no way to know what to look for when a certain problem set appears, unless it is one of a small number of well-known problems. Black plugs => running rich. White plugs and hanging idle -> running lean. Backfiring on high rpm decel -> too-small main jet. Hard starting when cold -> too small pilot jet. All other issues get blamed on a mystery combination of vacuum leaks, poor fuel delivery, "gunk," bad gas, and a whole host of other head-scratching guesses. So far I haven't found any explanation of why the bike refuses to idle at any speed between 500 and 2000 rpm, or why it won't start when hot. Now, either I have a truly unique problem, or everyone else who ever encounters this problem just throws up their hands and replaces the bike, takes it to a shop who replace the carbs or ultrasonic-clean-then-rebuild them if replacements can't be had. There's no record I can find on all of the internet of anyone actually diagnosing and fixing this problem. Which is why...

I say get that 500F and get it over with 

That is precisely what I plan to do, if possible. If the 500F checks out, if it'll start and run and it's all in one piece, then I'm going to buy it and then take my time figuring out what's wrong with the E without it keeping me from riding. And once I get the E running right, or at least consistently enough that I can sell it in good conscience, I'll sell it. At this point I hardly care about getting my money back out of it. I would easily spend what the F will cost me on professional repairs to the E and those won't take 18K miles off of its' odometer and 15 years off of its life.

But who knows. Maybe I get there and look at the F and it's a basket case worse than the one I've got.

[mr72]

BTW I updated my post from earlier, the light bulb method. Use a 35W/12V bulb ... I was forgetting we are working in 12V and my ordinary method to use a 60W household bulb won't work, that 120V light won't glow much at all no matter what in a motorcycle.

[benoitrenaud]

Hi, I'm new here, maybe this can maybe help someone.

I just change my speedometer and tachometer, when i started the bike for the first time everything shuts off, I first thought it was the battery (It needed to be change) so I bought a new one. I installed a new batt. that was not it, kept looking and found the fuse on the starter rely browned, so I disconnected the  speedometer and tachometer wires and installed new fuse, that did not work, fuse blow again.

Then I found something looking the links in this post, and decided to take a look at the clutch switch and, of course, it was loose and shorting out the fuse. I pinch the clips tighter, plug, and tried again, the fuse did not blow. 

So it was very simple, if you have the same issue, take a look at the clutch switch, those wires come loose with time.

Hope this helps.

PS: Sorry for my English, my first language is French.