18 hours of work, power drain solved

[chief]

Yep, may help others as well... thanks for providing the info.

[scwilli]

I'm just glad i got it fixed and would have never thought of the relay since the bike was starting, but happened to chance across a post on some forum about it.

At least it gave me a chance to go deeper in the bike than ive been before.

[chief]

Thanks for the info...

we have gotten to the point where we will find most bikes in "other than oem condition". As a result, we may find all sorts of strange problems. It is greatly helpful when you share your experiences. Who knows, someone else may have the same problem!

[scwilli]

Few months ago i posted up about a slow power drain that had me recharging the battery every few weeks to prevent a dead bike.  After 18 hours of effort(wish i had my clymers at my brother's house) my bike is much better off and i wanted to give a heads-up to anyone else having power issues.

Bad starter relay.  When the starter relay fails(this way at least), the bike always sends power to the starter.  Not enough to cause it to spin, but enough to drain your battery over time.  It will also prevent the headlight from coming on when the bike is started.  Mine was sending ~10 volts to the starter.  You can check this by putting one lead from your voltmeter on the battery wire going into the relay and the other on the wire leading to your starter.  If it shows voltage when you are not pressing the starter button, you got a bad relay.  The previous owner rewired the headlight(and all his aftermarket lights) directly into the ignition circuit because the headlight wouldn't come on.

Replaced the relay.  Put the headlight back onto its correct circuit, and now i have hi and low beam.  Rewired all the aftermarket lights to a new junction box where the owner's tools used to be.  Now my ignition works like a champ and the bike starts amazingly well.  Moved the ground wire of two lights that were not working from the plastic main headlight cover to the frame, and they work great.  Also put a filter in the straight pipes he replaced the air filter assembly with.  Still a lot of work to do, but it is fun molding the bike into my standards.

Lesson learned about someone else's custom work......Check to make sure they haven't assed their way through it.