short in system kz550

I was riding the new bike in the rain today and I think I shorted something. I was adjusting the idle after 5 miles of riding to warm up the bike. I shut the bike off and heard a small click from under the seat. All power went off, no headlights, neutral light, nothing- dark. I thought maybe I got something wet. I let the bike dry in a heated room for 3 hours and went to look for the short, after doing the tried and true "jiggle the wires" the short was "fixed" and the lights came on again, but when I hit the start button there was another click and the lights and all went dead and no amount of wire jiggling seems to work. What did I break?

check your main fuse. the fuse holders in these bikes are junk usualy. some have installed the newer blade type fuses and holders. another idea is to solder the main into one inline fuse holder and be done with it...steve

Yeah the main fuses definetly look like a weak link. I looked at the main 20amp and all secondaries, they looked fine. I understand sometimes the glass fuses can break where it is hard to see.I will get new ones and start planning to swap out the box soon, bummer though cause I just picked up the bike yesterday and it ran great. Super fun to ride.

Just "fixed" the short, it seems while riding in the wet today the finned apparatus underneath the battery tray got soaked so I disconnected it and dried it out and It started right up. Now all I have to do is find out what that thing is and keep it drier next time. The headlight started in shorting now too... could be fun on a dark back road...

Regulator/rectifier is in there with that big gob of wires. I would suggest checking all the electrical connections, one by one. Pull them apart, clean em, then use some of the dielectric tune up grease before you put them back together. Just one bad connection can have you pulling hair out/ throwing wrenches; I know.

The electric problem persists, now the bike shorts out all power and when I do get it running it won't take any load to the motor or even rev over 6 grand in neutral. it coughs and sputters and won't do any better than 3k rpm. did I kill the rectifier? How much would a new one be? I saw one at old bike Barn for $250+. Any thoughts? I am starting to appreciate this forum more and more.

Still sorted out, it's the wires themselves, the wiring does have me pulling hair out, I think I'm just gonna put a new rectifier and wiring harness. I'm going to radio shack and over-building the new harness though. Audio cable for kz's? I think so.

Check your grounds too.

I'd use somthing other than speaker wire, its an absolute waste of money, especially getting it from radioshack. Standard fine strand copper automotive wire is fine, just solder and shrink wrap all the connections you can, and use dieelectric grease on the ones you can't. I'd also reccomend you do a "temporary" layout of your wiring harness, then slip heat shrink tubing over it wherever you can to keep it tightly bundled, and wrap it with electrical tape where you can't. Zip ties are also a good idea.

Maybe you are right, I was thinking of some overkill big wires and lots of shrink wrap. Maybe even some conduit for more frankengood looks.:evil:

Maybe you are right, I was thinking of some overkill big wires and lots of shrink wrap. Maybe even some conduit for more frankengood looks.:evil: