83 Seca 900 bogs down.

At the suggestion of K-moe, I'm going to give this one a rest for a few days.

 

My headlight, signal lights, and horn don't work all of a sudden. Also, the high beam indicator light will not shut off. Bike starts up great and has been running great. Changed the battery about two months ago. Anybody have any idea why this happened?

 

Hi Josh
Painted handle bars will not ground well. Or ground in switch cluster is broken. Or fuse or contact in ignition switch?....

 

Thanks for chiming in. I messed around with it a bit and I noticed that when I turn on the signal light I can hear a click in the flasher relay. Does that mean anything?
Doesn't the headlight only feed off the stator? Is it possible the stator is not working causing these problems?

 

Are you getting 14+ volts at battery when running?

 

The only thing common to those 3 is the output connector of the left control, otherwise they are somewhat separate and something like a common fuse is not going to cause an issue with all three. Even with the common connector you would have to have multiple pins not making contact. That connector is under the tank on the XJ750 that I have, I am not sure about the 900.

Do the turn signals illuminate and not flash or are they just dead?

Per the diagram I have you can not have a high beam indicator illuminated without the high beam light illuminated unless either the H4 bulb is defective or there is a poor connection at the H4 headlight bulb.

They are not related like the bikes that have a headlight relay. Once again the diagram I have the 900 starter switch is combined with the headlight switch. Turn the key on the headlight should illuminate, push the starter switch and the headlight goes out.

 

Like my vmax then. The starter switch contacts better be clean or no headlight...

 

The turn signals are completely dead. Is it possible that the "common connector" came apart? Also, would a defective bulb cause these problems. It's weird that the high beam indicator light continues to stay on regardless if I turn the left hand control switch on or off.

 

How do I find the starter switch contacts? Do I trace it back to the bucket in the headlight?

 

I am guessing you mean left hand control to high or low beam? Not on or off?

Well looking at Ebay the left hand controls terminate in the headlight bucket. I would start there and check the connectors inside the bucket to make sure they are not corroded and that they are properly mated. While you are at it go ahead and connect the headlight to a 12V source to check if high and low beam work.

If the ground is missing from the H4 bulb then 12V from the low or high beam will illuminate the high beam indicator as it uses a different ground path.

They are in the right control. I would hold off going there until you verify good connections for the left control and check the headlight bulb.

 

Looking a bit more it is likely that if you follow the ground wire (black) from the H4 connector it will go to various bullet connectors. There is likely an open in one of these that is either loose or corroded that is causing all of your issues. I would start with a DMM and checking that the H4 black wire goes to chassis as it should, that way you will know what the problem is and keep an eye on it to see if it suddenly changes as you move wires around.

 

Well, it works now.

I first tried taking out the two screws to the switch cluster and I barely opened it up and then closed it hoping to kind of wiggle things around in there. Didn't work. So it just so happened that I'd been wanting to readjust the choke cable for some time because there was too much slack. After doing that I turned on the bike and voila! Everything works. Go figure.

 

Well actually, you are the one that needs to go figure - it will happen again, and you need to find it before it does.
If I'm honest I'm not a big fan of asking the forum to diagnose electrical issues, you get loads of different "check this, look at that" from people who may not know the wiring of your bike, and are guessing at best. Get a DMM, get to know the wiring diagram so it doesn't frighten you, and use logic to test for the voltages you should have at various points. You start at one end or the other - battery or headlight in your case and work allong, building confidence as you go. Then you will never be waiting for a sensible answer from someone who's not guessing.

 

Or this, or just a poor connection. My "guess" excuse me, is that the control had lost its ground to the bars. I suspect that the XJ900 is similar to the XJ750 Seca in that a path to chassis exists through the black wire, left control body, handlebars, frame, but this is not documented on any of the prints. I would still suggest checking the connectors inside the headlight bucket because I don't think this is likely the return path that Yamaha intended for the headlight.

 

Right on! Thanks for "guessing".

 

Moving on to my next issue.
I've been running 5k resistant spark plugs (NGK BPR8ES) with 5k resistant CAPS. More often then not I've had starting issues especially after the bike is warm. Could this be the reason why?

 

Unlikely, but you are putting strain on the tci - change one or the other.
Bad hot starting could be over rich mixture - this might be mixture screw settings, float levels (caused by) float needle valves, fuel in oil (ditto), wrong idle jets, can't think of anything else. Oh, bad sync might cause it, and tight valve clearances too.