Hi Everyone,

Ive had my CBR for a year and put almost 10k on it. I took it out on Sunday for the first day of the season, and on Friday while coming back from a ride, my bike suddenly died and wouldn't start. The electronics looked like they were going crazy. So I pulled over and immediatly smelt a rotten egg smell and saw smoke coming from the battery.

I took it home and the battery was completely done, bulging out and acid dripping from it. I cleaned everything off and attempted to start the bike with a smaller battery from my old suzuki. The bike turned over but the fuel pump never primed and the FI light never came on.

When I first bought the bike a year ago I replaced the R/R with an electrosport model from the Honda dealership because it was undercharging my battery and leaving me bump starting the bike in 2nd gear. Now 11 months later I believe that the regulator failed, fried my battery, and who knows what else.

Heres where I'm at right now, any help would be appreciated:

Removed the R/R and sent it in for warranty
Removed the blown battery and fitted the bike with one from my old bike
Replaced burnt out headlights (my guess is from the regulator failing it burned them out)
Replaced the blown fuse on the fuel pump

When I replaced the fuse for the fuel pump I tried to get it to start again, but the fuse blew immediately when I hit the kill switch to start the bike. So I tried to jump the fuel pump with the 12v battery. Connected the brown and black wire and brown wire to the battery and nothing happened. I measured the resistance between those two wires and came up with about 1270 ohms. Is my fuel pump burnt from that excessive voltage?

Any help is appreciated.

 

Hi,

I couldn't figure out how to edit my original post. But I managed to get the fuel pump to work when I jumped it with a battery. But still blowing fuses everytime I try to prime it with the killswitch.

 

Sounds like you have some wires melted together. Check your harness. Start where you saw smoke....

 

hmm ok, I have no idea where the smoke came from. Is there any place you'd recommend starting? I'm a bit nervous about tearing apart the wiring in the whole bike...

 

Follow the harness from the battery. Melted harness is pretty obvious. If you don't find anything that stands out, it will be a bit more difficult to trace down.

How are you with electrical tracing and wire repair?

 

Alright so I got a chance to dive into the first harness. It has a grey connector and goes from the battery, through the fuel pump fuse (which keeps blowing), to the relays and then to the grey connector back into the bike. It looks like the previous owner has done some external wiring for the integrated tail light. But it was all properly crimped, heatshrinked, and showed no sign of short (as well as the taillight works fine).

That seemed to be the easiest harness to check. I have a basic understanding of electricity and how it flows. Im only 20 and still in trade school learning about wiring & electrical (with an instructor that is willing to help me with my bike). I think I'm going to have to take this on because theres no way I have the cash to pay a mechanic to rip the whole bike apart and do electrical troubleshooting.

Is there a chance that the ECM could be causing the fuel pump fuse to blow? Or maybe the diode everyone is talking about thats in the ignition as an anti theft feature. I feel that I can get this bike to run again, I just need a little guidance on where to start.

 

Once the reg comes back from warranty, sell it and buy oem.

 

Yes! I'm planning on it but my first priority is getting my bike back up and running.

 

Hey Demon,

So I checked the wiring harness that went from the fuel pump fuse and into the two relays, then back into the bike with a grey connector. I undid all the wrapping and checked out all the wires. It looks like the previous owner did some external wiring for the taillight, although it looks like its crimped and done properly with heatshrink. This has been like that since I bought the bike over 10k ago, so I can't see it being the issue. Other than that there is no overheating or damage to any of the wires. Where should I go next? It looks like all the other harnesses are burried in the bike behind the frame and fairings.

I'm not opposed to taking all the electrical wiring out, but I don't want to go in guns blazing and rip everything apart if I don't have to. I have a basic knowledge of electricity and I'm learning more everyday. I'm only 20 and I'm going to school for refrigeration/hvac and we do deal with a fair amount of wiring. I can't afford to take it to a mechanic and pay them to troubleshoot.

I'd like to try and figure this out myself and I'm sure with some help from everyone on here I can do it. So whats my next best move to make? Take the fairings off and start getting into every harness? Is there a chance my ECM could be causing the fuel pump fuse to short out ?

 

Next step is to get a wiring diagram and check the circuit for a short to ground. You can unplug the stuff on the circuit to break it up into sections. You may find that by disconnecting things, the fuse may stop blowing when you take the bad part out of the loop.

how does the reg connection look?