Background to my issue: my bike has been garaged for most of winter without being on a tender. When I got it out for spring, it was no surprise that the battery started giving me issues. For starters, the fuel pump wouldn't prime unless I had freshly taken the bike off of the charger. I had other issues like the bike dying on me twice while riding. So I bought a new battery.

My issue now is that I'm still having the same problems. It seems like there has to be a short somewhere in the bike since my battery loses enough juice that it won't start within about an hour of being taken off the charger. To make things worse, it isn't drawing quite enough current to blow a fuse (so I could more quickly locate the area of the problem.)

The other part of this is that even right after I charge the battery, if I turn the killswitch off/on and let the fuel pump prime over and over, it takes longer and longer until after about 6 times, it already won't have enough juice left to prime again.

My question is: Is there something common that can suck that much juice out in that short a time period without tripping a fuse? Any suggestions where I should start looking? Thank you for any help you can give.

 

Well ... lookin at your problem and description ... Sounds like you have a dead or shorted cell in that battery .... a quick test of that would be to take the battery off the bike, put it on the charger, charge it for a lil while, then take it off the charger ... let it sit for a lil while to equalize what charge it received, then take a voltage tester and see what it's reading .... should be approx 12 volts ... if it's around 10 volts or less then you need another battery ... they do have defective batteries and this test would just be a simple step in ruling that out ... the next test would be to see if an accessory is staying on constantly and has overtaxed your battery to the point of failure .... to test this, turn the bike off, disconnect anything that stays on constantly (i.e clock or alarm) and remove negative lead from the battery, then take a voltmeter and touch the battery post and the negative lead going to the bike ... there should be 0 volts ... if there's anything but zero you could have a stuck relay or a wire thats rubbed through its insulation somewhere along the line... if these tests turn out good, then we'll need to move on to something else ... keep us posted

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I've never tried to troubleshoot a short before. I went out and bought a multimeter this morning and checked the voltage across all the terminals in the fuse box. With the bike off, there was only one fuse that was drawing power, the one labeled "clock." It was drawing 11.5 volts with the ignition off. With the ignition on, it went down to like 2-3 volts. Is that normal?

The other issue is that the service manual isn't in agreement with the labels on the fuse box. The fuse box says that that position is the "clock," whereas the manual says that that position is for "meters." it's the position farthest from the headlight fuse.

When I get home later, I'll check the battery and do the negative terminal test and report the results.

 

I'll keep checking back to see your results on the battery tests ... do the "off the bike" test of the battery first (as that's the simplest way to check for a bad battery and the simplest fix) ... then do the "on the bike test" to see if there's anything else that's drawing alot of power when it's not supposed to be ... if there is, then we'll start to check further and narrow it down from there ...

The fuse you checked that read 11.5 volts going to the clock is normal, as the clock always stays on ... so that shouldn't be the issue ... and that lil discrepancy between the fuse box and the lid is kinda funky ...

Good luck man ... hope this turns out to be a simple fix and you can get back to riding ASAP ...

 

Sorry it took a while to complete the tests. I got busy with mother's day stuff yesterday. I did both tests today. The battery, by itself, has a good solid 12.8 volts. I plugged it back in and even with the 12.8 volts, the bike is having trouble starting. Then I disconnected the only thing I could think of that is constantly on: the clock. (I don't have an alarm.) I just pulled out the fuse that was draining power last time. There is a 12 volt draw on the battery when I ran the multimeter across the negative terminal and the ground wire.

So I guess there is indeed a short or possibly a stuck relay as you suggested. How do I narrow down where it is, though? I figured all the circuits on the bike should be covered by a fuse, right? Unless it's one of the battery cables themselves, or something like that.

 

You can try keeping the negative disconnected with the voltmeter hooked up like before and pull one fuse or relay at a time till you see the volts drop to nothing ... you can even keep the fuses out that you pull till you find the right one (just don't get em mixed back up when you reinstall them) ... sounds like something somewhere in there is stuck and drawing some power away from the rest of the bike ...

 

I tried pulling out the fuses while testing the negative terminal and none of them affect the draw. I'm goin to look up all the locations for the relays and try pulling those next. Thanks for all your help so far!

 

Well honestly I we haven't fixed the problem yet man ... So I won't accept your thanks till I know you're back out on the street enjoying your bike ...

The relays should be in the tail section of the bike ... Mine are in the tail, on the right hand side as you sit on the bike on my 954 and close to the battery on my GixSix ... shouldn't be too far away from that I imagine dude ...

 

Okay, update time. The relay's were fine.

So, with the battery off the bike, I hooked up the multimeter to the positive battery cable and to a part of the frame and set it to measure resistance. It had very low resistance, as should a short. I went through the wiring disconnecting/reconnecting connectors until the resistance shot back up to infinity. It went back up when I disconnected the part that is on the left side of the tail that looks like a huge heat sink.

I'm not sure what the part is, though.

 

Ok, I checked the wiring diagram and found out that the part I'm referring to is the regulator/rectifier. I'm assuming that because of it's position and name it's like the rectifier bridge on a car. It runs inline in between the alternator and the ECU/fuse box. '

To confirm that it was not a short in the alternator, I pulled the the connector to the alternator first and there was still a very low resistance. Once I unplugged the rectifier, it cut the circuit.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna test it as per the service manual's instructions. If it's bad, then I'll have my definitive answer.