losing electrical when warm

Yesterday during a short ride on my 87 KZ1000 I lost power to the instrument cluster and signals including brake light. Headlight and running lights work but gas guage, tach and neutral indicator went out as well. This morning when she was dead cold all worked fine for just a couple of minutes into the ride.
My Clymer manual is on the way but anyone have any clues before I dig into the wiring schematics?

These old glass fuses can do some strange things. Many will look good and even give continuity, but are still bad, especially when they warm up. A lot of people upgrade to the blade type fuses. It's on my list but haven't gotten around to it.

Until you can upgrade to the automotive blade type I'd suggest replacing all of the glass tube fuses before you get stranded.

A website www.easternbeaver.com (funny name)
sells almost everything electrical for motorcycles. and a company that makes the blade style fuse holder is at www.bluesea.com I got my blade style #5025 through www.davesmarineelectronics.com/index.asp

great advice man. thanks. I've never seen old fuses do that and I've been driving old volkswagons for years. I shorted each fuse in turn and easily found the offending circuit. Pulling the fuse out, the end cap came right off reavealing a nice clean break in the fuse. No melt or anything that would have been visible on just simple inspection.

Thanks mfolks for some good links. I'm gonna find a glass fuse replacement for now but I'll be ordering a new box now that I know where to go.

Bikes are like high performance aircraft, both have parts that vibrate at many frequencies and all want to fly off.

The next time you have started your bike and its warmed up just open the throttle to say 4K and watch what buzzes and shakes!