1983 Maxim 550 Neutral Light on then off.

My 1983 Maxim 550 was stolen, the police found it I picked it up from the tow yard. The ignition switch has been drilled of course. I can put a screwdriver down in there and turn it into all the positions. The neutral light only comes on once every 50 or 100 tries when it does come on I can hear the relay click on then immediately click off and the light goes off. Any clue which relay I should be checking or should I be doing the ignition switch maybe pull it apart, any help would be great because it's parked outside of the tow yard and I'm trying to get it home.

 

They are really easy to hot wire with one jumper at the fuse box, but you need to be a bit cautious as the jumper needs to go from the main fuse output to the three branch circuit input, otherwise you might bypass a fuse. You can use a DMM to determine which is which on the fuse box.

Or, you can pull the ignition switch and jumper from the Red, Blue, and Brown wire on the main harness with a jumper, preferably at least 16 gauge in both cases. Red and Brown will get you running, but Blue is needed for the tail light and not really required for daytime

 

Thank you for the reply Sir.
So, if I pull the ignition switch plug from the harness, which I believe is in the headlight housing, I can jump the Red to Brown in that headlight plug and it should get me running ?

Also, I took the ignition switch apart and used the rectangle block with copper or whatever connectors to push against the little contact board with my fingers, but it didn't do anything.
I have tapped on the 4 different relays while in the ON position, that didn't do anything.

 

It could be more than just the switch as I don't think jamming a screwdriver in there should affect it electrically unless it causes the ON position not to be maintained, which is kind of what I thought you initially described with the neutral light.

Doing the jumper will hot wire the bike and it should run if all else is OK. You may need to check 12V on the fuses just to be sure all is well there. If they have voltage then time to look for something else. I assume the starter is not engaging? Neutral light was intermittent? How about brake lights or horn, which would be an indicator of 12V making it out of the ignition switch?

 

Hello my friend.
So far there has not been enough time to be able to push the starter button or to see if any lights are on. Actually when I take the screwdriver and turn it which is just like using the key, the lights are not coming on like if I was to turn it and try and lock the steering the lights are not on.
As I previously stated, when you use the screwdriver which is exactly like using the key and you turn it to the on position I have been able to the neutral light powered on but only for like one second and then you hear the relay click off.
A couple years ago I upgraded my fuse box to Blade style fuses. I checked them they all seem to be good. I don't have any tools or test lights that stuff got all stolen. I'm working with very minimal tools right now. On the side of the road.

 

I'm going to try and not give too many details because that ends up being too much information and then I guess things get confused. So I have a portable jump starter that I have to use to give it power, I'm grounded to the foot Peg and the positive is on the battery side and I have also put it on the battery side terminal of the starter solenoid, what's happening is my portable jump starter is yelling at me like there's a bad connection or is not grounded, so I unplug the big red wire coming from the battery side of the solenoid and it goes into the wiring harness somewhere and then my jump starter stops beeping and yelling at me when I turn it on the next time of course. So it seems that when I'm hooking up that big red wire something goes wrong right there.

 

Well, without tools I don't know what to say. It could be as simple as a bad / not charged battery. Got a Harbor Freight close by - they sell meters for like $10.00? It's kind of like staring at that nut and thinking I could fix this if only i had a wrench.

 

Yes sir of course I know that. Now what about the other symptoms I described any clues?

So I will add this I guess. The motorcycle has a bad charging system I've been using a portable jump starter on it starts just fine it runs just fine until it got stolen.

 

Well, I don't know anything about your portable jump starter - maybe it is saying overcurrent condition? Disconnecting the larger red wire that goes into the harness should be like removing the main fuse.

If your charging system was bad then I suppose they could have driven it until they ran the battery down?