IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-- SOLVED!!

I couldn't decide yesterday if I wanted to go to Dollywood or ride my bike.. so I figured I'd just ride my bike to Dollywood and have everyone else follow in the van

Well I ended up going in the van

I turn the key, neutral light comes on, hit the button and it does nothing.

Recently I pulled apart the starter and cleaned it up because of this same issue, and it started after that.

I made sure the kill switch was actually on, I've made that mistake before.

I took it off the center stand and still nothing, I put it in first, pulled in the clutch and nothing.

Made sure all wires and things were all hooked up to their respective places (I have kids that I have caught 'riding mommy's bike' and they tend to well... be kids)

soo XJ gurus any ideas?

 

Re: IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

The starter button itself. The switch pods come apart easily (just be careful) you probably need to clean the contacts.

 

Re: IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Can you jump the starter solenoid? Maybe there is a bad connection there somewhere.

MN

 

Re: IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Yeah I can jump the starter and it will start.

Guess time to take apart that button.... I'll do that today and see what happens.

 

Re: IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

You can use a heavy wire to jump across the solenoid to start it if you think your switch is going bad. Or maybe it's the solenoid that is going south on you? Or it could be one of those safety switches (kick stand switch, etc. or nuetral switch) stuck?
I know you probably like to keep your bikes as stock as possible (keeping all the safety swiches intacked) but I found that eliminating some of that crap makes starting problems much easier to fix. Simplifying the electrics is the key to having less problems to go wrong and alot less headaches in the long run.

 

Re: IT's NOT STARTING AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Can't be safety switches. The safeties actually disable the TCI, so jumping the solonoid if they were bad would only crank the engine, not get it running.

 

After taking apart and cleaning the starter button I still had the same issue.

I got out the trusty multi-meter to find the starter button was dead, no juice.

I traced everything back and everything BUT the ignition had electric.

The PO's wiring was something to behold and it was something I was going to fix but hadn't gotten around to until today.

He had installed a new fuse box with blade fuses. The trouble with it was he spliced it all and connected the fuse box with all the same color wire, red.

After removing all his electrical tape I find the wire to the ignition fuse was broken. Then I removed more and more and more tape until I found the other end. He had soldered the wires together and the solder had broken. since I had all the tape off anyway, I connected every wire back up with wire connectors, used a paint marker in different colors and marked the red wires with close to what the wires should be. Then I shrink wrapped it all back up... hit the button.....

And Voila.. a running Seca!!

Thanks for the input and advice guys!!

I hope to be just like you when I grow up!

 

P.S.
Posted pics in my gallery of the wiring job the PO had installed

 

Geez, don't trash my wiring. The only color I had was red. Those connections held for years. I had to do all that work after finding that some kind of animal had chewed up all the wires and made a nest under there one winter.

 

Geeze, an awkward moment...does anyone like fried eggs?

 

NOTE TO SELF: Don't sell bike to forum member.

 

"It's the only color wire I had!" sound a lot like "It was the only size adjustable wrench I had!" doesn't it? haha just kidding! the wiring job didn't look that bad.

 

Robert, you make me smile with your ability to understate!

Loren

 

It really didn't look too bad. If want to see bad you should see the fuses on my seca. The PO apparently didn't have the right gauge wire to fix the main fuse. So it has two small gauge wires twisted together to make main fuse lead longer. And the leads are all different colors on both sides of every fuse.

 

Yeah, if you want to see bad, you should have seen what the wiring on that bike looked like before I redid it. Two functioning fuses on the original box and two inline fuses attached with about a foot of extra slack shoved under the tool tray.