keep blowing main fuse

hey yall if i only take my bike for a short trip and kill it followed by an imediate restart and sometimes after a little "opening up" my bike blows the main fuse (one or the other) the one on the white wire. When i hook up my multi meter to it it pulls 15.5 volts which seems mighty high to me any ideas on what could cause this im trying not to scratch build a new harness as i hate single color harnesses. Thanks again.

What model & year of bike? Anything done electrically lately on it?

sorry its a 84 kz700a1 nothing electrical other than converting to a round headlight and putting in a new battery and rebuilding the starter though it did this before the starter was rebuilt.

Here's a troubleshooting procedure made up by a forum member:

The Dreaded Shorting/Intermittent Electrical Problem!


Here is the most basic method I know(Taken from www.kzrider.com by member Patton)

1. Charge your battery and have it load tested if you can. The floating ball hydrometer can be used to check the specific gravity of the charged cells in the battery.

2. Disconnect the Black lead from the (-) Battery terminal... or Red from the (+) Battery terminal, it does not matter which one. Just 1, not both!

3. Connect one of the following test setups in series with the Battery terminal and lead:
3.1 A 12 V light bulb,
3.2 A 12 V test light,
3.3 A 12 V test buzzer or,
3.4 A 12 V horn... you get the idea.

4. With the Ignition Switch OFF, go through your harness and wiggle the wires while looking/listening for the test setup to go on/start buzzing.

5.With the Ignition Switch ON, repeat the test except this time the looking/listening for the test setup to go off/stop buzzing.

6. Be prepared to open the Ignition switch and check/test for solder joint failure and or circuit board micro breaks (don't ask how I know this ).

7. Be prepared to pull the wires out of the Head Light to test for failures at or near the grommet.

8. Be prepared to open the harness at or near the Steering Neck for failures. This is where wires tend to exhibit fatigue due to repetitive movement.

9. Be prepared to open the left and right switch gear to search for rust and or broken parts. CAUTION: watch out for flying springs, ball bearings and stuff. Do indoors on White sheet (again don't ask ).

10. Be prepared to follow the heavy gauge wire from the Starter Solenoid (Relay) to the starter for bare wire exposure. Especially near bends and grommets.

11. If you can reproduce the fault symptom your are pretty much home free. Be prepare to find and repair/replace any internal wire breaks, insulation break downs, exposed wires, rubber grommet failures, etc. Often, shrink tubing will solve the problem temporarily until something better can be done.

12. I use a very good electrical contact cleaner/preservative called De-oxit made by Caig Labs in San Diego Ca. Their website is www.deoxit.com It can be purchased at Radio Shack and any other electronic supply store. I use it on all of my motorcycle’s electrical connectors ,in my home entertainment center’s stereo patch cords and cordless phones charging cradles.

i dont quite understand how that works can you explain it in further detail preferably a diagram of how to hook the light or buzzer?

The below pertains to large Kaw fours, but believed also applicable to other models.



Overcharging may also require more frequent addition of distilled water to the battery in order to maintain the correct fluid levels.

Good Fortune!

Even if the charging voltage is high, that will never blow a fuse, bad battery won't blow a fuse of course either. There are two distinct type of fuse failure, one is from a short circuit. This will render the inside of the fuse black in most cases assuming in 1984 they were still using standard glass fuses. This means something the fuse supplies volts to is shorting to the frame. Common in the headlight for wires to rub through the insulation, but can be anywhere. The other type of fuse failure is when the fuse melts from heat. You can look at the blown fuse and see the filiment has melted usually at one end, and usually plastic in your fuse box will be melted also. This is from bad fuse clips and the fuse will keep heating and burning up in a short time. This is a very common problem. Sometimes polishing the clips clean and shiny will fix this. I zip tie the fuses tight to the clips to get more contact pressure and never have this problem anymore.
If the problem is the first one, an intermittent short, finding it can be tough. Last one I had I removed the fuse and wired an old headlight across the terminals of the fuse and a good meter with min/max feature across the bulb. Turn on the key and the bulb will light up full 12v level if you have a direct short, however if not the bulb will light up partially. At this time read your volts on the meter and set the min/max up then start wiggling wires, turn the handlebars ect to try to simulate riding. If a wire touches and causes a short, the meter will read high and the bulb will light bright. This way you are not blowing countless fuses, the bulb works as a fuse and is an easy indicator of when the short is happening.

Thinking outside the box here...but my 550 used to blow main fuses whenever it damn well wanted to. Finally figured it out. My seat pan would touch the battery post once in a while just right and must ground it. So, a couple pieces of rubber shielding and less trips to mcdonalds = problem solved.

ron i was thinking the same thing you were as it was always the element melted to one side so i just replaced it with an shiney new inline waterproof new style job thanks for the help every one now im going to go ride and see if we were right