BADD Ground

I'm sure I'm not the Lone Ranger with this problem, so I thought I'd share it with everybody.

Went to start the bike, pressed the start button and all I heard was a Pffffttt, and the lights went out. (neutral and oil light)

No power, well that's easy, must have blown the main fuse. Nope, fuse was still fine. Even had power through my "coil mod", but not the main ign switch.

Very odd.

I'll shorten the story, I checked all the power wires running up and through the ign switch, to all the lights etc, thinking I had a voltage/amperage drop somewhere. Everything checked fine.

The problem, after several hours of going "WTF", ended up being my main ground wire from the battery to the right side of the engine case was internally corroded. To the point where it wouldn't even sustain enough enough voltage/amperage to keep a neutral light on, much less start the bike.

I didn't find this until after I had cleaned all the connections and replaced the two bolts at either end of the ground wire. I removed the wire and the lights(in my head) started going on when I put an ohm meter on either end of the wire and by wiggling it around got anything from a direct short to 33 ohms. That ain't right!

Basically the first two to three inches of wire off the battery were internally corroded so bad, nothing was making contact. In fact the wire was so hard you could hardly bend it. Ought to have been able to bend it easily. I cut the wire open, it sure didn't look like clean shiny copper anymore, that's for sure.
By looking at the wire from the outside, heck it looked new, or at least in great shape, none of that battery crud laying around the terminals.

Anyway, one new Negative battery wire later, everything is satisfactory.

In the past I'd been trying to find voltage drops, even installed the "coil mod" to get more power to my coils.

But when you got a bad ground wire, or can't "complete the negative circle" you're just chasing your tail.

I also found somebody had painted the frame and I was getting a poor ground contact from the engine to the frame, Double Whammy! Had to fix that too.

Hey, learn from my problems, It's cheaper.

Post edited by: ThousandKaw, at: 2006/08/09 11:50

I have had that experience also although not on a motorcycle. My old Mustang GT wouldn't charge.. similiar thing. I have been using a multimeter for electrical trouble shooting for many years but STILL forget to use it sometimes and get caught on what in hindsight looks like the simple things. I have learned, "Start at the beginning!" after banging my head many times.Thats a good tip you have posted.