New bike to me bought just last week 97 Cbr 918

it was on the cheaper end for these bikes but I was just overjoyed to be back in crotch rocket ownership
and when I was collecting it after my short test ride the owner took a second to restart it and wiggled a few wires in the area of the dash and muttered “great it’s ok”
on 3.5hr journey home stopped halfway for fuel and went to start it turned over and over but wouldn’t fire up and the battery seemed to be dying off
so I rang previous owner and he said main fuse under seat

I unscrewed lifted seat pushed what I now know as starter relay out of rubber case fuse looked ok
with the fear of getting stranded setting in my head went west
by now my pal who’d given me a lift to collect it had caught up in his car and it was getting well into the early hours and we hooked battery up on jump leads and a few swear words later and it started and I continued on
got home parked it up
next day started fine went out ran great stopped in with friends to show of my new beast and went to leave and same again struggled a bit to start but fired up and got me to the end of street then cut out at junction as I went to pull away this time nothing no lights on dash no clicking narda
so I popped seat wiggled tapped starter relay pushed and checked all connections plus checked wires and connections around dash hey presto was all back on good to go ride it all day no problems
Used it to get work next day no problems but on a close inspection in daylight on my lunch break noticed one cable from ignition not soldered on was loose still aware of this I got the bike home removed the ignition from bike and in doing so the other wires snapped off so through luck alone noticed that if these two wires were touching bike was fine so ran it like this for a day (hot wired&#128559 then the neighbour to the house I was working at the next day offered to solder them back on happily I excepted and for the last two days I thought the problem was solved
today set off for work was happily pushing on and stopped at a red light, put it in neutral sat nodding at the fellow biker next to me 🤓 he pulled away and as I went to pull away bike stalled in middle of junction I hit starter button heard a click then same again bike died no electrics no nothing tried the process of wiggling tapping starter relay no joy 🥹
managed to push it home Ive had a good strip back of the panels looking for a broken wire and no success and now no nothing no lights on dash no clicking nothing
noticed red connector on starter relay looks chared so I’ve ordered one (the starter relay)
and the (is it a kill switch or break switch ) connection was bad on behind throttle/ front brake so I’ve order one of these also

any help suggestions or advice would be very much appreciated as this bike was intended to replace my broken car 😢now I’ve got two fuked vehicles and I’ll be funding taxis next week to get to work until I can afford to get a mechanic to look at it 👊✌️



sorry for the rambling post 😬

 

Too bad old bikes that have been abused by previous owners always has so many issues. Luckily electrics are easy to fix and you never have to buy any parts to repair them. Just some extra spare wire and solder is all that's needed.

Do you have multimeter and know how to use it to measure voltage and resistance (ohms)? This is usually 5-minute fix with multimeter, maybe 15 depending upon how many broken wires there are.

Remember, you are not Superman and cannot see electrons flowing in wires. There's absolutely zero way humans can just look at a wire and determine its ability to conduct electricity; broken wire looks exactly same as good wire. Start with practicing measuring spare wires off bike to determine if they're good or bad. Then move onto bike and measure each and every single wire to find all broken ones.



Same with fuses. I'd be trillionaire if I had penny for every single time I heard, "Fuse looks OK!", but actually didn't conduct electricity at all.

 

Thanks for the reply Dan
And after Alot of searching I can now say I no longer have a multimeter 🥹 and if I do it’s lost to my inability to store anything in a sensible and logical way 👍
yes I can definitely agree to not having any electrical supply vision in my super powers 🙃 so I will be on to the hunt steel or borrow of a meter this week
much thanks 🙏
should my year bike have a diode connected to the ignition to reduce the voltage down to 9 volts ?🤷‍♂️there were only three wires leading to it 🤔(excuse my ignorance) I was assuming one power in one power out and one for fan ? Is this right? A red a red and black and a blue and black

 

Not sure about diode on that year. Check all positions on gry ECU connector for pink wire. Most likely not issue because diode problems are all-or-nothing binary thing where bike won't run at all. Yours obviously runs, so definitely not diode problem.

From area he was fiddling with, it may be BAS or its wiring. Inspect all connectors for loosen corroded terminals. A lot of times, terminals can get pushed out of connector housing when plugs are connected. Measure red/org wire at BAS, should have full continuity to chassis-ground (zero ohms).

Then measure other end of same wire at engine-stop relay. Should also have full continuity (zero ohms) to chassis ground. Then measure red/wht wire at engine-stop relay, should be full battery-voltage fulltime. Wiggle wires around and confirm that these readings don't change.

Get multimeter here: https://www.harborfreight.com/7-func...ter-63759.html

 

Brake-lever switch isn't causing any of running problems you have. But it's safety item, so good to have new one to make sure your brake-lights always work.

Starter-solenoid is most likely fine, but the red starter-solenoid connector is common problem with Hondas. Somewhere penny-pinching bean-countre specified bare brass terminals inside that connector. Which corrodes over time, increases resistance and causes burning of entire connector.



The single red wire in that connector provides ALL power to entire bike: lights, winkers, clocks, EFI system. That's why you have no power to anything since that connector burned up. You can replace that connector with replacement pigtail:

You chop off old connector and splice in new pigtail with proper western-union/linesman knot, solder and adhesive heatshrink tubing for mechanical strength, conductivity and corrosion resistance. It's done this way in pro-motorsports (F1/MotoGP), military and aerospace applications for performance, reliability and durability.


Don't need to pre-tin these bigger wires, too difficult to knot. Will end up looking like this when done; as good as continuous piece of wire. Like this stator to RR joint. That's another common area where factory bare-brass crimped terminals also corrodes and burns.



Now note how replacement pigtail has TWO red wires whereas factory connector only has one? That's handy feature because now you've TWO wires to transmit same amount of power as factory's one wire. Join those two red wires together and connect to single factory wire like this. This will lower heat through connector and ward off burning.

 

Cheers Dan makes perfect sense 👌👌👌👌ordering connector now 🙏legend
much thanks
good vibes and much thanks for your top advise this forum is top notch and a real life saver 💪

 

Sorry, I had posted wiring of VFR. Here's one for '96-97 CBR919RR.



First, make sure colours on replacement pig-tail matches what you have now.

Second, line up wires in same position of connector with wires on harness.
- one red on pigtail goes to red on harness - power-output
- other red on pigtail goes to red/wht on harness - power-output
- grn to 2x grn/red on harness - earth/ground
- blue to yel/red - start-button power

 

Excellent pal much thanks 😊 👊