The plight of my kz650

I bought a '79 kz650 the summer I left home for college, everything was fine and dandy until one day it didn't start. Checked the battery it was stone dry, went out bought a new battery and when I was putting it in I noticed that the positive and negative wires coming out of the battery were fused together. I cut them free of each other and it was plain to see that copper had been touching copper. Since then I haven't been able to get a spark, electric starter died, horn died, lights still work although the left signal triggers the emergency flashers.

I would just like to know if this has happened to any of you or if it would screw up the wiring?

I'm a noobie here so feel free to link me to a thread that may solve my problems.
Thanks.

Welcome to KZr Howie2.

I've never heard of the battery wires fusing together like that since they're so far apart, but anything's possible.

I'd suggest first checking the fuse box and wires going to it before testing anything else.
The fuse boxes on these old KZ's are notorious for becomming very corroded internally over the years and are usually just a few engine revs away from failing, and it's becoming a total PITA trying to find replacement glass fuses since no current manufactured vehicles use them.
A good portion of us here have upgraded to the AGC/ATO type fuse boxes like THIS ONE to help eliminate the problem.

After that though, you might just want to check the reg/rec, stator and coils to see if they got toasted when the battery cables fused.

Since some of the electrical controls on your bike still function, but aren't functioning properly, it leads me to believe that there are some other wires somewhere in the harness that have also fused together or are grounding out.

Post edited by: RetroRiceRocketRider, at: 2007/03/24 11:12

Welcome Howie.

As RRRR mentioned, check those elec. items and all the wiring for frays and shorts.

RRRR is prolly right, something similar happened to me when i got my bike first, i actually was the biggest idiot int he world, hooked up a battery backwards, fried my rectifier and melted half my harness.

as with ANY electrical problem such as this. look for the path of les resistance. weakest link on both positive and negative sides. electric always burns up the point of least resistance 1st. then moves on to the next point. that includes connections as well as parts.
I hate it when that happens!!! GOOD LUCK!