please help: I'm having electrical problems

ive got a maxim 750 1982 , ive fitted an alarm during this process i blown something now i have all electrics working except headlamp , auxcillary lamp and two lights which are bolted to frame , please will you clever guys out there help this idiot , is it headlamp relay ? if so where is it and where can i buy another one
thanks very much for any help , this is a brilliat site
best wishes all mike

 

Re: please please help

If it's not a fuse under the seat, then it's a fuse in the headlight bucket. It's more likely you shorted a wire than overloaded a circiut - but for the background where and how did you connect your power source.

 

Re: please please help

thanks for reply , the fuses under seat and in headlight are ok i checked with meter thats why i thought it might be relay , i connected alarm wire to the positive in at ign switch and the ACC out at ignition also earthed it at frame as it says in instrutions .
thanks for help you are a star
best wishes mike

 

Re: please please help

any chance something got crossed over and the headlamp is now grounded?

Try disconnecting the ground wire you added and see what happens?

Can you tell us which connections you tested -- and the result? Looking for clues

Woot.

 

thanks
i,ll try taking alarm off at weekend to see if that was problem , do you think the relay is ok then is there a way to test it , i have a good multimeter , i,ll let you know what happens
cheers woot

 

you don't really need to take the alarm off - I was just wondering if the power supposed to go to the light was accidentally being sent to the ground... ie you bypassed the light.

If you disconnect the new ground you can test that theory as the only complete circuit left would be via the headlamp.

Woot.

 

i see what you mean i will try taking earth off only , i think you might be on to something there , it seems strange that everything is working {indicators, brake light , horn back light , but no headlight or the extra lights previous owner put on , ive also noticed there is no back light on speedo but the computer does work all this seems to say a fuse has blown ive tested them all , this earth thing you suggest sounds promising , thanks once again i'll keep you updated , i'm teaching guitar tonight so bike will have to wait untill weekend
cheers mike

 

Re: please help: I'm having electrical problems hey woot

hi mate i tried disconecting earth wire no good so i took the whole alarm off still no lights , i lve next door to a car garage hes looked at it and hes says he doesnt know whats wrong hes going to have to test everything from the battery to the lights , theres one thing i didnt tell you , when i was fitting alarm i got so far with it then the next step was to wire up a remote start via the key fob infra red button so i had to find the positive out from the start button on handlebars while i was doing this i tried varies wires then pressed remote start button when i tried one of the many wires out i heard a crackling sound from under the seat area so i dont know what damage has happened down there , these things still work
START ENGINE BUTTON , HORN , BACK LIGHT , BRAKE LIGHT , KILL SWITCH , everything except headlight and small light under headlight and two auxcillary lights on bars at front ANY IDEAS ?
thanks woot
best wishes mike :cry:

 

UM - that little tidbit of information might have been good to have

Well - you toasted something under the seat...

Take the seat off, lift the fuse thing up and start tracing wires - you might have to take the tank off to get a really good look. Sounds to me you overloaded the circuit and perhaps you had youself a cosy wire fire.

All of the fuses checked out? Have you got a fuse tester? I suppose at that point the wire could have been unfused (where you connected it)... follow the wires is all I can say - start from the battery, where they go to that little round thing next to the battery up past the fuses and along the underside of the fuel tank.



Woot

 

thanks
ive got a good multimeter with a continuity position so i know all fuses good , im working on bike in a couple of hours from now uk time i'll keep you informed
best wishes

 

Zap, you really need to do a good visual inspection of your entire harness from the battery through to the head lamp. I suspect you fried your wires just as our dear Woot pointed out. It is possible you fried your TDI unit if you shorted something. I'm a great advocate against aftermarket alarm systems for this very reason. I can't tell you how many times I get the "well I put in this alarm system, see..." Last week it was a friend's kid putting a stereo in the family van. Woof! Flames, smoke, annoyed and amazed parents.... I recommend you do a point to point ohm out of the harness and check for continuty to earth for each point of test. You'll find out if you shorted anything pretty quick. Be sure to disconnect all of the connections on the bike to start with (no sense reading through a sensor). The harness schematic in the Haines is very good for this and easily decypered. It may well serve, depending on how handy you are, to just buy another harness off of e-bay or a wreckers and replace the unit. One, you can ohm out the donor harness unimpeded and two, you have spare parts. Typically, I find the alternator plug is melted (lousy engineers didn't give the harness large enough wires for the load). I've gotten replacement kits for this repair from Honda of all places and it seems to be much happier. If you wish, I'll keep watching your posts and pass on observations (I've been troubleshooting aircraft wiring harnesses for 20+ years). Good luck!

 

thanks robert for your input im having another play around with bike today , do you really think i could have fried wires i say this only because the bike starts fine and most things work , i said yesterday in a post that amonst other things my back light worked this was wrong only the brake works , the horn , indicators , speedo dial light not working but the computer does , basically its the whole light sytem thats faulty , what does the TCI unit do would the bike still work if this was damaged
thanks for all your help

 

one more thing my bike was imported from the US i would be interested to know if any one on this forum recongnises my bike , i know know the us is a big country but maybe previous owner uses sites like these , althought he would not be happy with what ive done to his pride and joy , my intentions are good i want to protect it , i'll try to get some pics sorted
cheers

 

I would strongly suggest the visual, you don't want to find out you melted the insulation off of a wire halfway down the road when it decides to ground out and set your pants aflame! The TCI would not creat the lighting problem you mention. It is only for the ignition system. You could have smoked a poor or corroded joint in the system. On these older bikes, the electrical connections were crimped but not sealed. This allows for moisture to "wick" into the wire and corrode contacts. Over the course of many years, this corrosion builds up on the strands of the wire and the contacts of a crimp joint. As you know, the corrosion itself changes the current handling capacity of the wire by reducing the surface conductivity with the corrosion byproducts (oxides!). Electricity is conducted on the surface of wires, not in the middle. Raise the surface resistance of the wire and the current required to push through to the load increases, sometimes dramatically! I've seen these conditions heat up wires 'till they smoked and melted insulation! There is my speech on corrosion and wires. Bottom line, check it out very carfully. Wish I was there, I'd whip that harness into shape in no time. I have taken the time to doctor my connections by soldering them and sealing them. I've replaced my battery cables with units I made myself and dropped my line resistance to less than half an ohm. Corrosion on my starter button is now a thing of the past, I resoldered it and sealed it (be careful, the insulation near the point of heat will discolor and melt if your not careful, don't forget to use a shunt). If you've any more questions, fire off another post and include those pictures if you can, a picture is worth a thousand words! Cheers.

 

thanks robert
its only 7.30 here in the uk and 0 degrees so im going to have coffee and toast then i,ll get going , i will look for burnt wires first i'll take my camera with me . although the bike is 25 yrs old its hardly been used only 4000 miles the owner before must have kept in garage , i say this so you know that the wires are in good shape , you have a lot warmer drier weather ove there , im going to take alarm off , tank off ,seat off headlight cover off and get looking and testing
speak later mike

 

hi robert i fixed it , ive been working on it all day checked everything from wiring to diode , relays , fuses i was going to give up then i gave the fuse box itself a tug and then the lights worked , i think what had happened like you said was the wires in fuse box which were on top of each other melted together , thank you very much for your help , i was too busy to take pics i'll do some out on the road later
best wishes mike

 

Happy to hear you nailed it! Sounds like you found the issue like a pro! The cheesy little clips on the fuses also collect corrosion, you might want to go in there, pull the fuses and scrub the clips carefully with a bit of 3M Scotchbright (green is fairly common and should do the least amount of damage, it is abrasive). Afterward, smear a smidge of that wonderful dielectric grease on the exposed metal to prevent more corrosion from setting in. If your really handy, laquer the block with bad fuses in the clips to keep the laquer from insulating the spots where the fuses touch. Word of warning, I have had these clips give intermittent performance just before breaking, necessitating the replacement of the old fuse block with a newer blade type holder spliced in. Not the prettiest on the block but much better in terms of reliability. Be guided accordingly. I will be making a new fuse block from plexiglass sometime this summer, converting to blade type fuses with a few extras thrown in (like a battery opperated LED to be able to see the fuses on a dark night without having to fumble for a flashlight!), I'll be taking pictures and I'll post when I'm through. Cheers and keep warm!

 

Here's a pic of the one I just installed last week. I really wanted to cut a hole in the cover, lower the fuse block, and install the original fuse box back over the new. But the air filter inside was to close and therefore I was unable to do that. Not real pretty, but it works.
The connectors i used are crimp, solder, and heat shrink. you just strip the wire, insert into connector crimp it and put a heat gun to it, melts the solder and heat shrink at the same time. I like um. I use them at work all the time. never had any trouble with them.

EDIT:
Yes it's the blade type fuses. I'll try to get the part#. I told my local parts house rep. what I was looking for and this is what he sent. It wasn't packaged so I don't have a part#. Next time I see Him i'll get the #

 

Nicely done Rich, want to do a few more? I'm curious. That looks like a new box. Did you upgrade to the blade type fuse? Where did you source your parts? Thanks.

 

thanks robert yes would like to see fuse box , as i am a bit of an idiot would you tell me the best way to shrink a photo so i can post it here , do i need to take a smaller size pic with camera or shrink it after .
RICH i like your fuse box very neat also looks cool
best wishes all from UK mike

 

and be very careful when

cleaning the 'old' fuse box! ç

i mean very, very careful,

thats how i broke one of my clips

 

Hey UK Mike;
check out this post in the archive, for pic re-sizing.
http://xjbikes.com/archive_forum/t538.htm