I went to start up the bike Saturday night to ride home, and when I turned the key, nothing would light up. I had JUST parked it about 15 minutes beforehand after a cruise. I thought I had a dead battery somehow, so I tried to pop start it about 5 times going down a hill. With no success i realized it was a little bit more of a problem. Pushed it back up to my friends house and started checking fuses, battery, etc.
Once I got to the ignition relay, the lights flicked on and the wire fizzled and sparked a bit. After looking at it, the plastic housing has melted pretty badly... I could move the wires, and could start it if i wanted to, but I wasn't about to take a 1.5 hour freeway trip home, knowing a single bump could shut the bike off.


Now that I have located the problem... #8 on here. #2 wouldn't hurt as well.
1996 Honda CBR900RR BATTERY Parts, 1996 Honda CBR900RR BATTERY OEM Parts - BikeBandit.com

Any idea what could have caused the problem? It looked as if the wires had been pulled out a bit, and may have touched, causing the sparks and melting.

I hope I can easily swap this out, and that it wasn't something else causing the problem with this part.

 

Update with some photos:
New relay/switch on top, old melted on bottom

melted

ugly


Alright here's the tricky part... I cut the wires back, put on new covered spade connectors, and even used connection grease... Inserted everything back into their spots, connected the battery, turned the key, and nothing happened.

I don't have a volt meter to check the connections at this moment, but this is giving me a headache. For a week, I had the negative side of the battery disconnected, but the negative wire was touching the frame of the bike, so there's a possibility that it drained the whole battery?


Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

I have a feeling that since the negative wire was touching the frame, it depleted the battery. I'm certainly not an electrician hah

 

Battery is beyond good. Wasn't that...

 

Figured it out... The part that I bought is the reverse of what I need. Didn't even know that was possible! Left is right and right is left. I had to put the wires from the battery and starter upside down.

I guess that'll work for now, but the part is in there pretty awkwardly and not covered from water.

 

By any chance was the 30 amp fuse on the starter relay burned out? I had the same thing happen on my 900 however my plug doesn't look as bad. The fuse is intact. Wondering if I need to replace the relay switch or just clean it up and rewire it for the time being.

See pics

https://cbrforum.com/forum/cbr-900rr...ust-do-147858/

 

Posting my PM response:
"That is pretty melted, and like mine, the fuse didn't blow to prevent that melting. You should definitely replace that relay. It was like $20 on eBay? Just make sure they send you the right one. The one I got was a reverse copy of what I needed, so I had to put all my wires on upside down haha. Left was right, and vice versa.

I ended up putting new spade connectors on there with covers so there is no interference between them. I think what is happening to your bike is what happened to mine. If I jiggled the wire, I could start the bike, but that relay is pretty melted like mine."

 

Looks like the problem has come back again.
What would cause a fuse to melt like this?!?

 

I had the same thing happen, after I fixed the relay switch I went through the wiring, specifically behind the handlebars I found a bind in the wiring, an area where it was being pinched. I opened up the wrap and found nearly all the wires cut and arcing/shorting because of the bind. I fixed the wires, no problems now.

 

+1 good to know! That actually makes sense. While taking my tank off, i noticed that the previous owner had put the tank back on and pinched some wires. My front brake wouldn't light up the brake light in the rear... I moved the wires so they weren't pinched, and all of a sudden that works now. They are probably arching along with some other things...

Thanks!