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Main Area => General GS500 Discussion => Topic started by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 08:10:03 PM

Title: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 08:10:03 PM
I've been doing some work to my bike, getting ready for winter and what not, and now it's very dead.  Lets get some details out of the way:

Brand new battery as of today (replaced it because I thought it was at fault, now I hope I cant get the battery or money back)
Turn the key and only the oil and neutral light come on.  No head light, no tail light, no crank, nothing.
When the key is turned, it only draws 5.8 mA.
Fuse is not blown (with the fused pulled out, the two indicator lights do not light up)
There is not a short in the system when the key is off.
Hand controls seem to not effect anything but I haven't started slitting wires to see what's getting power yet.

This is all happening before a 250 mi trip I had planned tomorrow.  :technical:

I'm going to start delving through the trouble shooting in my cylmer, and testing switches but any pointers for something to look at from you guys would be great.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: RossLH on October 16, 2012, 08:21:09 PM
If you got a brand new lead acid battery, you'll need to charge it before you use it.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 08:27:14 PM
yeah, that was done at the store.  Its charged as good as it'll ever be.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 08:39:03 PM
Also, just confirmed that the starter and engine stop switches both work.  Just the switchs themselves.
Title: Electrical Problem
Post by: jestercinti on October 16, 2012, 08:49:45 PM
Sounds like a bad or discharged battery. Please tell me it's a good quality one and none of those no name brands.


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Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 09:04:10 PM
I purchased the battery last night.  They charged it over night, I picked it up 5 hours ago after watching him complete a load test.  I am not a know it all but this is the identical batter that served me fine since February.  It's a Super Start Powersport.  Picked up from O'Reilly's.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: DoD#i on October 16, 2012, 09:13:05 PM
I think the 99 is still similar to this 90-96

(http://www.bbburma.net/Scans/Haynes_WiringDiagram_US_90-96.jpg)

Would mean orange is, and brown isn't getting power (99 colors may or may not be the same)

Horn works? (should if diagram is applicable.)

No headlight (high and low checked?) makes the yellow/white dead, makes the connector to the right handlebar switch suspect.

Brake light works with rear brake (only)? With front brake(only)? Not at all?

No tail light makes the ignition switch highly suspect, as that what feeds the brown. Try it in "Park" - the brown is fed from Red in park, and from Grey which goes back to the RH connector in on, which makes the RH connector look like a good locus of suspicion.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 09:33:39 PM
That is an awesome picture!  A lot better than staring at the black lines in my book.

Ok.  I'm a little iffy on your terms but here's what I got now.  The tail light only lights up when it's in park but horn does not work in either position.  Hah, and that's about as far as I get it.  Is my next step to try and bypass the Ignition switch and see if that fixes it?  Or...shoot, you mean to check the Right Handle control wire harness?

Man, thanks a bunch already.  Getting something out of my bike loosened my chest up a bunch.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 10:15:17 PM
I just bypassed the ignition switch and never got it to crank over or the head light on.  I can hear the ignition control unit clicking with the turning of the key (I think that's what i'm hearing click at least). 
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: djslowmo on October 16, 2012, 10:34:47 PM
BOOOM found it!!!!!!!  The black/white wire in the starter relay had gotten disconnected!  Crisis averted. Man!

Thanks a bunch DoD#i.  If you hadn't made it clear that the horn should be working, i wouldn't have followed that line back to a ground.  A ground failure was all that made sense. WOOOOHOOO. 

And good night.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: GI_JO_NATHAN on October 17, 2012, 04:00:36 AM
Nice. Good job.
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: GSnoober on October 17, 2012, 04:11:28 AM
Great fix guys; logical, analytical thought solved this, and djslomo now knows more than he knew before this happened.

Of course, we can all be thankful that Kerry is still hosting so many important GS500 files while he's living the serene life in Utah... hope he still has his '96 on the road...
Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: DoD#i on October 17, 2012, 07:05:00 AM
HTH. The common one (but with very different symptoms) is the clutch switch.

And by the way, nice job of describing specific symptoms to the point that I could make some suggestions which eventually lead to you finding the problem, even if I didn't suggest the actual problem.

Have a nice trip.
Title: Electrical Problem
Post by: jestercinti on October 17, 2012, 07:55:50 PM
I was wrong...I used my answer of what 90% of the issues are: bad or dead battery.

Glad you got it working. And it was something simple.


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Title: Re: Electrical Problem
Post by: tegboi on November 02, 2014, 07:44:15 PM
Thanks to this thread, I found the problem to my '89

It ran fine until an hour ago when I turned it off, I tried to restart, and nothing works except the oil light and neutral light.

Problem was at the black/white wire from the neg side of the battery. I disconnected the single connector, and white corrosion dust came out. After disconnecting and reconnecting several times so the corrosion inside would clean off a bit, everything worked back to normal.

I'll be checking, cleaning, and will be applying dielectric grease to every connection on the bike soon.