Electrical Issues / Update

Hello All,

Been a while since I have been on the forum, however thanks to many of you and the XJ community the bike has progressed along. After a complete carb rebuild, I got the the bike running healthy and with good compression however, I have been having quite a few issues:

1. Turn signal / horn do not work while bike is at rest. This is quite strange because sometimes if clutch is held in they both will work and other times they will not--it is quite inconsistant. Following this sometimes if horn / turnsignals are used while the bike is on--the motor will be killed and stop the bike from turning over. This is strange, as the kill / run switch works perfectly fine. Any ideas what could be causing this strange electrical issue? I'm thinking a potential grounding issue?

2. When turn signals do work (which is rare) only the right turn signal will "blink" the left will not blink and simply turn on and stay on until the reset button is pressed.

3. Lastly when attempting to start the bike occasionally the bike will not start and a "buzzing noise" can be heard I assume this is my starter relay, however sometimes this occurs other times it doesn't. While the buzzing noise occurs, I can hear that the motor wants to turn over but can for whatever reason. I think its an air fuel ratio issue that I haven't touched yet. Battery reading 11.4V. I am just posing this question because I want to know why the buzzing is occuring and whether theres a correlation to the bike not starting.

If any of you could get back to me regaurding this issues I would greatly appriciate it,

Thanks Wildman

 

If your battery is sitting at 11.4 volts it needs either charging, or if it wont charge, binning, The voltage is too low to properly crank engine and could cause the starter solenoid to cut in and out rapidly making a buzzing noise
Low voltage will also cause problems with indicators flashing slowly, the other problems you are having could all be linked, you do not say if you are measuring battery voltage at battery terminals or from the wiring, if its from wiring could be linked to bad earth, if problems are still present with a good battery voltage check the switches and wiring connectors

 

Hello Paul,

Votage was measured at battery terminals. I think I am going to invest in a new battery the one I currently am using frequently looses charge. I agree with your assessment that this could be the issue or part of it, but even at good voltage the blinking of the left turn signal isn't present. Negative battery terminal is grounded near starter, but not toward the bottom of the motor, could this be part of the problem? I'm thinking the turnsignals/horn may be grouding through clutch cable?

Thanks for the advice.

 

Fully charged battery should be 12.6-12.7V. Most new batteries are 12.7V fully charged. This must be measured 1hr AFTER any battery charger is disconnected from the battery as the battery voltage during and after a charge can be inflated. This is with a battery and NO LOAD.
If you turn the bike on and the battery voltage drops below 12.5V under this light load, good chance the battery is bad. SOMETIMES, if you have a lead acid battery that the fluid is low, you can fill it back up with deionized water and charge and it will come back to life.
Chances are, it needs replacing anyway. A standard turn signal relay does not work well with a low battery. Weak old starter solenoids show sensitivity to battery voltage more than a brand new one.

 

Connect a car battery to your battery and see how the bike reacts.

 

The other members who offered assistance prior to me were right on the money. Good advice.

If you still have problems, this is how I got things to work better.

As tedious as it seems I start all projects by cleaning all grounds to bare metal and greasing with dialectic grease, Cleaning and greasing all plugs, with contact cleaner and dialectic grease, (I'm quite liberal with the dielectric grease) especially in the headlight bucket where there's more exposure to moisture. Battery terminal connections should be shiny and greased as well. The fuse centre on my 82 XJ750 Maxim was completely eroded to nothing. Pieces were breaking off of it so I replaced it. That's something to really look for. Along with corrosion on the wires due to loss of insulation, usually from rubbing against something or just age and being brittle. You mentioned your battery was losing power. You may have some sort of parasitic loss as a result of a short, possibly in your fuse centre, or elsewhere on the bike. I'm pretty sure that the forums supporting vendor for parts will have a more modern alternative to the old-fashioned fuse centre. The supporting vendor also sells every factory colored wire available for these bikes. There are a lot of things to look for when dealing with electrical. It's not as daunting once you become familiar with the bike. I had a print shop expand my haynes manual schematic to 11" x 17" I also had them laminate one. Then I kept a couple of paper copies that I could highlight on. That made things easier to follow.
I don't know what else to add other than the only way I could give my old electrical system a fighting chance was to clean everything up and get rid of the corrosion so those electrons would flow free. Once I was confident that the wiring was in order. Connections and continuity were good. That's when I could look into deeper issues and diagnose other stuff.

Good luck! There are lots of members on the forum who are smarter than me who can help you.