Note to self and everyone else out there who has a service manual:

When the service manual tells you to bypass the starter relay by jumping a wire from each side of the connection, DO NOT ever do this. There are other methods of testing the starter, like pull the damn thing out, disconnect your battery from the bike, and just connect the wires. If you do and your problem is not your starter, and really an electrical short(s), you may just fry a bunch of other electrical components on your bike... Thanks service manual for costing me hours of additional time and more time of not having my bike and possibly a lot of money for electrical components if my donor bike's parts get fried due to these issues...

 

Today's notes:

Dismantled the entire wiring harness main and sub harness for lights / all the wires look great except for the ones coming off the signal control switch.

Taped off bad wires for the control switch that were melted
Re-wrapped entire wire harness (looks brand new!)

Disconnected all wire connectors up front

Reconnect one by one checking voltage at key turn:
Lights and signal wires cause drop at key turn
Disconnect main signals (only large black connector small black connector does not produce voltage drop at key turn)
Connect lights (white connectors) and remove all bulbs / no voltage drop
Start connecting bulbs one by one to see what happens / didn't get a positive ID but seems to be related to neutral and side stand got a service call and it's hot as hell out in AZ even in the garage....

Swapped out starter switch / nothin special but this one looks better and the start button actually says start

Key off!

Test continuity for lights and signals with all connections hooked up / continuity all over the place including places it shouldn't be! Definitely confirmed short(s) but that's stating the obvious

Test continuity in signal switch (disconnected) / bout 50% good results... this part's fried

Test resistance on ignition pulse generator / 28-33.... that's now fried

Test continuity on ignition switch in neutral / continuity for one minute then popped in gear to test and got no continuity, put it back in neutral, still no continuity. Neutral verified by moving bike back and forth.... neutral switch is probably fried

Test continuity on side stand switch / only tested with stand down, but checks out continuity from ground and no continuity on the other wire (which I'll assume gives continuity when stand is up)

So far the ignition pulse generator, neutral switch, signal control switch, were fried due to the bridging of the starter and positive battery cable because these parts all worked fine before... Goes to show how important fuses are in an electrical system and bypassing them could be your worst nightmare...

 

In fairness to the manual, there's no way to predict that you had a strange short. So you jumped the starter and the current ran back through the switch and melted something else, yes?

Sounds like you're troubleshooting as logically as possible. Hope you have enough parts between the two beasts to make one complete bike ...

 

I understand your side on that one, but the starter is very easily removed, so from my personal experience, I would just suggest removing the starter, disconnect the battery from the bike, and then test the starter direct to the battery because there could be other reasons why it won't start, and if it's a reason like mine, you'll probably almost be set on setting the bike on fire with the left over fuel in the tank.

As for melting wires, yeah I melted wires and shorted things out, namely the neutral switch and ignition pulse generator. The neutral switch looks like a real pain to get off because of how far it's set back, you can't get a wrench on it and with the wire there's no getting a socket on there, unless the wire disconnects from the switch but I dunno about that... Doesn't look like it. As for the ignition pulse generator, whether I like it or not I'm at least buying sealant and a new gasket, without a job that's a tough choice because 1, I will save money in gas, if it works, but 2, once I fix those, is everything else gonna be ok? At the current rate B sounds like the important scenario. I'm even thinking about bringing up the other bike and swapping all the body and license plate, at least I'll be on a 49 bike instead of the Cali... Tough choices in a very tough time.

 

Today's notes:

All my voltage readings are done by connecting the negative test lead to the top of the bike above the battery in the rear bolt hole for the gas tank and the positive lead going direct to the battery terminal via the battery tender positive wire (easy setup so it just sits there)


Disconnect all lights bulbs including headlight and connect electrical connectors at dash then turn key / no voltage drop reading at 12.7~

Connect any display light / voltage drops to 9-10~ lights do light up / remove bulb

Connect Neutral light while bike is in neutral / no light no change in voltage / remove bulb

Connect turn signal displays / no drop until engaging turn signal connected lights light same drop as display

Disconnect all terminal ends from tach and temp gauge / no change

Move engine switch to run / voltage drops to 9-10~

Hit starter / voltage drops bad in mV range high variance

Move engine switch to kill & hit starter / voltage drops bad in mV range high variance

Disconnect ICM and test just engine switch / no change in voltage regardless of position

Test start button with engine switch on or off / no variance

Connect head light / voltage drops to mV range

Test clutch switch continuity / no continuity disengaged, continuity engaged gtg


These tests done at head light connection
Disconnect headlight and test voltage to low wire and ground / 12.7~

Test voltage to high and ground brights set to low / nothing

Test voltage to high wire and ground brights set to bright / 12.7~


Swap head light (done before) and test at battery terminal again / voltage drop to mV range....

Disconnect 9P black connector and connect head light / voltage remains the same

Voltage began dropping down to 9-10~ but occassionally would jump back up to 12 while messing with the wires though it had no special pattern. Next time this occurred was not able to get it to register for 10 minutes of playing around but disconnecting 9P black and white connectors returned voltage.

Check ground continuity all over the bike / all good

Check continuity on all wire ends with ground and everything connected / no continuity... should be a good thing but you'd think something would register if there was a short

all cables connected continuity on turn signals still only shows one pair that register where there should be two when cancelled three wires all show continuity.

Next mission:
Unwrap the wiring harness starting from the front sub wires going to the main working the way back until *hopefully* something is found...

 

Today's Notes:

Connect trickle charger to battery since it's been in use quite a bit

Test voltage drops with everything connected including headlight except display bulbs / No voltage drop at all....

Disconnect battery charger & test same scenario / voltage drop to mV range again...............

Test start button with battery charger connected / repeated clicking from starter relay

Check voltage levels from starter relay starter side / jumping like crazy repeatedly clicking

Remove starter and test direct to battery with main wire disconnected / starter buzzes no spin....

Test other starter (original from my bike) / starter buzzes no spin...

Test starter relay with no starter / single click looked like about 10v but wasn't going to hold it for too long just in case



WTF!?

Swapping out light/turn signal switch later to test voltage levels then will start unwrapping the entire wire harness starting from the front and separating all the wires with headlight connected unless light/turn signal switch gives promising news...

 

It is so hard to diagnose over the net. Sounds like you are doing everything correctly. My only advice would be to disconnect every electrical draw on the battery and then go through each one seperately. Might start with pulling all fuses and then plugging up one at a time and then test your voltage on the hot circuit.

Something is definitely going to ground ... whether it's a wire shorting or a relay sticking I can't tell ya. Just gotta isolate everything and reconnect until you find the one (or two) that's bad.

Buddy at work was having the same type issues and I gave him the same advice. When he pulled the fuse for the electric shifter everything started up perfect ... so you just never know.

 

if I pull the fuses for the lights (both of em) I'm good to go. Also disconnecting the wire connections for the lights and I have no voltage drop. The major problem is the lights are tied to everything in some way, most notably the green ground wire. Honda did a terrible job on my bike with splicing too. Some areas they used shrink wrap, some areas they used blue tape, and some areas they used some standard black electrical tape. I'm certain this is Honda's doing as well since I was working with the original wire wraps which someone would have had to remove all the pins to the connectors to pull off and put back on, which is typically more work than most are willing to do.

Mostly I'm updating this as a journal for myself, and for anyone else coming across a similar issue to have ideas on what to check into, and EVENTUALLY one day I'll have it fixed and I can post that too. It's probably going to be something stupid like "yeah there was a wire that had a tiny crack in it that wasn't visible to the naked eye but that was the bitch" but hopefully the methods and ideas here will help someone.

I do appreciate you checking this one out and pointing some thoughts, I really do. You've posted a lot of good info so your opinion is always good However I will say I ALMOST wanna call you a traitor for swapping bikes but it's all good

 

When all is said and done hit me up and I'll delete anything not relevant and clean up the thread.

Thank you sir ... most of the time I'm full of hot air but I've done my share of electrical troubleshooting on bikes. Some with better results than others. And feel free to call me traitor ... just don't call me a ****. I'm soooo tired of being called a **** If you'd told me 5 years ago I'd be riding a v-rod today I'd have said you were delusional ... prolly throw in a few expletives for good measure. Who can say what happens down the road?

 

Good info for when I finally get forced to track down a short to ground I have. Right now I have a melted conntector on the starter relay which a little wiggling and air (blowing out the crap in it) fixes.

How bad is it pulling out the wire harness? I'm considering just buying a used one since I can't find a replacement for the starter relay connector