Keep blowing a fuse

Background

Was starting the bike up yesterday and it cranked, than everything went dead. I disconnected the battery, checked it and over 12v. I pulled the generator cover and one of the gears had made contact with one of the 3 wires exiting the generator cover. I repaired the wire, new rubber seal and gasket, hooked the battery back up and still no power. Popped the fuse box, and the fuse with the two white wires (one goes to the solenoid) was blown. Replaced the fuse, turned the bike on, hit the starter and the fuse blew again.

Any idea where I might start looking? Is my starter fried?

The excess current caused when the gear chewed on your wires may have also shorted the windings in the stator. You will need to measure the resistance between the windings. It should be somewhere in the 0.5 Ohm range between each winding. Any lower reading and you shorted them together probably by melting them. Any higher, and they are open. Both are bad. Measure the resistance of each winding to the bike frame or engine case, it should be infinite. Any other reading means you have a short to ground. If that is the case, make sure your wires aren't still bare and touching metal. If they aren't, then you will need a new stator. It's not the end of the world. They are fairly common.

Get yourself a manual, there is a section on testing all of your electrical components, stator (or Dynamo), regulator, rectifier, battery...

I had a feeling that was the case. I'll check the ohms in the morning. I noticed oil leaking out of the wire holes and that was next on my list. One of the wires must have gradually worked its way back into the cover. Dang it.

If you think that the problem is with the stator, try un-plugging the connector for it. If it still blows, then it is another problem or you could have 2 issues.
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Great.
Now didn't you do a rewire for your electrical along the Bare Bones route? Did you use one of Loudhvx's schematics from the Bare Bones for Matty light thread? If so which one? So everyone will have a good idea of what you still have on the bike.

Nope, no complete re-wire for me yet. I removed alot of the excess touring crap and did the coil/relay mod, but that's it. Bike was running perfect the other day. I'll check the stator when I get home from work today.

Just thinking out loud here... That fat white wire w/ red strip (that holds the fuse that keep blowing, that's the main power wire right? So something somewhere is grounding that out correct?

I had the same problem mine was in my controls on the handle bars. Thought I fixed it but now my fuses get hot could be the switches not getting good contact or an ignition.

DesertKZ wrote: Just thinking out loud here... That fat white wire w/ red strip (that holds the fuse that keep blowing, that's the main power wire right? So something somewhere is grounding that out correct?

Yes that would be correct, that wire feeds the main fuse. So the problem with a short could be on any part from that point on the bike. When you did the "Coil Mod" was there a reason? Low voltage at the coils? Or what? Anyway when you disconnected the lights and stuff, are you sure there isn't a wire bare or crimped in the headlight bucket?

Motor Head wrote:

DesertKZ wrote: Just thinking out loud here... That fat white wire w/ red strip (that holds the fuse that keep blowing, that's the main power wire right? So something somewhere is grounding that out correct?

Yes that would be correct, that wire feeds the main fuse. So the problem with a short could be on any part from that point on the bike. When you did the "Coil Mod" was there a reason? Low voltage at the coils? Or what? Anyway when you disconnected the lights and stuff, are you sure there isn't a wire bare or crimped in the headlight bucket?

Well, traced wires all afternoon, charged the battery up over night and voila, starts up and purrs like a kitten. A few things concern me though.

Per the manual, each yellow lead is supposed to read between .5 and .7 ohms, mine all read .7, .8 and .9. Anyone thinks this should be of concern?

About the coil mod, yeah that's why I did that, 11.4ish volts at the coil. I read through hundreds of posts here about the good and bad. This bike is in need of a complete re-wire and I think that'll be my winter project. For now, the coil mod made the bike run so smoooooth. I actually have performed the same mod in the past on my '69 Internationl and '69 Mustang, I'm kind of a fan of it.

I took Mfolks' advice and clean every connecter from front to back, changed out alot of connectors, battery wires, etc. I fear this may be a patch and everything should get swapped.

Thanks for everyone's input and I'll try not to bother much anymore!