I seem to have an intermittant Electrical Problem. Can someone look at the pic below and see if this may be the cause?

 

What are those parts and what is the problem? The bottom line, though, is that the easiest way to find out is to clean that stuff up and see if it cures the problem.

 

That's the starter relay and I'd say it's a good place to start. Trips is probably being sarcastic though, looks like part of it wiring harness might be melted (turn off the flash and turn on your macro Trips)

 

Yeah I was just being sarcastic. :P. Althought I'd love to know how that happened. The solenoid still works. Just the4 pins connectors to craped themselves. As they also control the main power as well as the starter it means a $70 tow and 2 hours waiting

 

I wonder trips if the main earth has come adrift?

 

A friend of mine stopped by last night. He has a VFR and was telling me that he had anintermittent electrical problem. The bike would run just find and then go belly up miles from home. He replaced the rectifier twice (they burned out) and some other things as the bike would just die after he thought that he had fixed the problem. After going to a VFR forum, some of the members though the problem was a certain connector. The trouble is that the connector in imbedded in the harness. He replaced the wiring harness and has put over 600 miles on the bike with out failure. He said the $250 US was worth it.

 

Trips, you can buff that out...
J/K

I've got the CBR parked right now because I need to do an oil change and clutch, and change back to the stock exhaust. But on the last ride, coming home from work I looked down and my nifty volt meter was reading 15.9 volts at speed and 13.9 at idle. That's pretty high.I think that I have what you appear to have had. A faulty voltage regulator. I'll see if I can find the procedure to meter it out and see for sure what's going on.

VFR's are notorius for rectifier and regulator failure. Newer CBR's melt wiring harnesses with alarming regularity as well. Hondas electrics aren't the best.

 

You need Amps to generate that sort of heat. Good old Ohms law I=V/R. The net effect being lower resistance ie short, equals more amps. If you can get hands on an ammeter you can measure your current flow. I usually put it in series between the +ve battery terminal and the cable. Basically with they key on and nothing on you should have very low current draw ie a few milliamps. If high, just keep unpluggin stuff until you find the area. Helps if you have a wiring diagram, you can use the old 50/50 problem solving technique. Isolate half the circuitry and keep searching down the half the fault is in, otherwise you can chase your tail abit.
I found a similar fault on my wife's Virago, the wiring harness was melting in places ended up being a short in the bl**dy carburettor heater.

 

Yeah I am going to do an amp check. But already found one intersting thing when checking for continuity etc. I was checking the ignition switch and there is 12ohm of resistance in a circuit that should be zero. That is 360 watts being lost just there!

Oh and with all of the melted wiring in the above picture the main fuse never blew.