XJ650 Neutral light wire routing

I've located the switch and it seems to be ok. With the wire disconnected my ohmmeter says I have continuity (on) only when the bike is actually in neutral. I've found the wire inside the headlight bucket and it reads "on" no matter what, even with the wire disconnected from the switch. I also found the sky blue under the seat, plugged into like a relay or something and it also always reads "on". I can only follow the wire for a couple inches from the switch because the frame and exhaust get close in that area.

What I need to know is where is that wire routed, and is there a common spot where it shorts out? Is there a quick fix for this like sliding a tube up on the wire or something? I want the light to work, but not enough to pull the exhaust off...

 

What year is the bike?

Anything else not working correctly - does the starter engage when in gear only when the clutch is pulled in and the sidestand is up?

It is difficult to follow the wire and it can be easily pinched, but this usually only occurs if the motor was pulled and reinstalled.

 

It's an 82. Sorry, I should have put that in the thread title.
As far as I know everything else seems to work fine. I originally thought that some stuff had been bypassed but seems like maybe not since I discovered that the engine quits if I put the sidestand down while the bike is in gear.

 

Any chance that motor has ever been removed and reinstalled? That harness runs up the side of the motor as shown below. The clip circled in red has to be installed as shown below and not wrapped around the wire. The clearance to the frame from the motor is extremely tight and will pinch/short out the wires if you wrap the clamp around the wires. Scroll down for pics.



Here was my pinched wire when I installed the clip wrong. I had to drop exhaust and lift motor to fix this.





Is the neutral light staying on when you put bike in gear?

This is normal.

 

Thanks much for the great pics and info! Yes, the neutral light is always on when the bike is on. Based on all the crap I've run into I'd say there's a pretty good chance the motor has been out before. Actually it seems like the bike might have been in a million pieces at some point and probably not terribly well put back together. Although I will say that it hasn't leaked a drop of oil on my floor yet, so that's a good thing.

Here's my latest discovery... streaks on back side the glass behind the plastic! How?? Looks like maybe the plastic pieces that hold the glass can pop out? I tried putting some pressure on the glass but nothing moved and I didn't want to break anything.

 

This doesn't sound right, shouldn't be plugged into a relay. I'll look at mine later. YOu should be able to unplug this, check to see if the wire running down towards the switch is at ground when in neutral and not when in gear. If so, your problem is upstream. This wire also goes to the diode block and the stater cutout relay. If the neutral light is on with the connection under the seat unplugged, you should then unplug the diode block and the starter cutout relay (individually) to try and isolate what is grounding the light. If light stays on with both of those disconnected, then you have a short or other problem in the harness.

 

It may not be a relay, I really don't know what a lot of the electronic parts are in here. It's a little squarish metal box that nestles into a cushioned mount. Looking under the seat and right above the airbox as you can see in the picture. When I checked continuity with the plug disconnected I found it "on" regardless of whether the bike was in gear or not.

 

Okay, yeah that is the starter interrupt relay. Under the tank, that's why I was confused. I was picturing something further back where the harness runs up from engine and plugs into the main harness.

Can you elaborate on how you are testing?

 

And for future reference:

https://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/the-ultimate-relay-switch-sensor-and-diodes-guide.27543/

XJ650 Maxim and Midnight Maxim models:

Flasher: near the steering headpipe, on right side frame rail, under the right side ignition coil.
Flasher canceller: under the rear of gas tank, behind ignition coils
Starter motor solenoid/relay: on right hand side, attached to and behind the battery box.
Diode block: inside the headlight housing.
Starter/Ignition cut-off relay (no color): behind the turn signal self-canceller. (note: the drawing and the description in the service manual is wrong).
1980-81 Sidestand (kickstand) relay (blue): did not use.
1982-84 Sidestand (kickstand) relay (blue): frame bracket outbound of LH frame tube, just behind the left ignition coil.
Headlight relay (yellow): behind the left frame side cover, on the plastic regulator-rectifier mounting plate. (note: the drawing and the description in the service manual is wrong).
Neutral switch: in a hole in the bottom of the crankcase, just "outside" of the oil pan, on the bottom of the engine, up inside a recessed "well".

Disconnecting the diode block and removing the starter cutoff relay is good advice from Jayrodoh just to eliminate that it is anything but the harness.

 

I just pulled the connector off that relay and stuck one of the ohmmeter probes on the connector and held the other probe to the cylinder head. Shifted gears a few times and made sure I actually hit neutral. Showed continuity the whole time. I bet it's pinched like you showed in the pics. I'll fool with it some more to see what I can see but I won't be taking a bunch of stuff off the bike chasing it.

Maybe if I knew where it goes into to the main wiring harness I could snip that wire and splice in a replacement?

 

Got a fair amount of stuff to check out now with all the links and pictures, I sure appreciate that. I may not get it worked out today, but I bet within the next couple days I'll have it working.

 

Okay, that'll work. You should unplug the diode block in the headlight as well and run that test again.

 

Oops, might not need to do the diode block thing now! I wiped off my instrument glass best I could, shined up the instrument buckets and put all that stuff back together just because I was tired of seeing it strewn all over my workbench. Since I had it all back together I gave it a quick check and it SEEMS to be working now! Maybe there was something going on behind the headlight, or maybe tugging on the sensor wire under the motor dislodged something, who knows? Maybe it'll quit working again, but if it does I'll know right where to start looking.