Lost horn, dash, brake, turn signal lights, no speedo or tach

[Lt.Gene]

Riding with my adult daughter on my 99 Valkyrie Interstate, I hit a large bump with the rear tire at approx 65mph and immediately noted the fuel gauge no longer registered.  Then stopped and noted no brake or tail lights, no horn, tach, speedo or idiot lights.  Headlights with high beam and fog lights and starter work normally.  Where do I start trouble shooting?
Thanks

[Chrisj CMA]

Ground cables, battery connections and all fuses..........bet one of them is it

[Thunderbolt]

Like he said check the cables at both ends of the battery lines.  Check the cable where it attaches to the alternator and the 55A fusible link under the right side cover.  Those are some of the same symptoms exhibited when an alternator ceases to function.  Display goes out, starts to stumble from low battery voltage.There are two cables attached to the fusible link.  One ties the alternator output to the fuse and the other is the battery + lead.

[Lt.Gene]

Great suggestions.  I was thinking along those lines so this is helpful.  I have a volt-meter which continued showing around 14 volts while I drove home..FYI

[RP#62]

There's a connector in the rear wheel well at the split in the fender.  It gets pinched easy.  If it does and shorts the tail lights, it blows the 15A Tail/Stop fuse and you loose all the stuff you listed.
-RP

[Lt.Gene]

RP, Thanks.  Sounds like it fits my scenario.  I will head right out and check it out.

[Momz]

There is a large blue connector terminal behind the dash. It will cause the same symptom if the connections become corroded. Common issue for I/Ss in northern climates.

[Mr.BubblesVRCCDS0008]

I'm with RP#62 on this. Did the same thing when my wife was riding on back and I had a tall tire and short shocks. Tire hit the metal cage the connection is in and fuse blew.

[Lt.Gene]

Well, I pulled the lower half of the rear fender and examined the electrical connection but saw no obvious damage.  Disconnected and cut the sheathing back, separated the wiring but still popped the fuse.  Pulled the wiring into the area under the seat and cut sheathing again but wires showed no obvious damage and still popped fuse.  Don't know where to check next...suggestions???  Thanks is advance.

[Thunderbolt]

O.K. so when you got time and checked the fuses, the one for the brakes etc. was blown?  If it continues to blow the fuse, leave the fuse out and put your meter on the ohms function or if it has a postion on ohms that beeps when you have continuity you could use that position.  Put one lead on ground and the other where you insert the fuse on the side that does not have voltage.  If it beeps or you have continuity to ground, you will need to open the ckt at any available point until you lose the ground.  RP put up a bunch of good drawings on Chet's site that should help.  Of course what you are looking for is where you pinched the wire or it shorted to ground.  May take some detailed searching.

[Lt.Gene]

Thunderbolt,
Yeah, it's like removing the rear light circuit didn't do anything to eliminate the cause.  I will try your suggestions and see.  thanks

[Lt.Gene]

I think I should have asked this earlier, but how and what area of the wires gets pinched?  This would give me a good place to start tracing.  Also, Thunderbolt, I have a muti meter but it doesn't sound, so what should I set the ohm setting to and what am I looking for?  I get numerical readings on the LCD display when I test as you suggest.  Again, thanks. (I really hate dealing with electrical gremlins)

[Thunderbolt]

If your meter is autoranging and does not have several different scales in the ohms settings, you will set it jus to the ohms setting.  If there are several scales like 2 ohms,20 ohms,200 ohms etc., most any of the lower scales should work.  What you should see on those settings on the display is most likely a number one in the leftmost place.  If you short the two leads, you will get something like 0.0000.  This is how you are chasing your problem.  If you put one lead on the negative battery terminal and the other on the side of the fuse that has no power, you should see the 1 or no short ie no continuity.  This is your troubleshooting method, you move the wiring harness around or unplug connectors in the harness until that 0.0000 or something similar goes away and goes back to the 1 or open.
In case you have not located the link for the schematics, here is the link. http://www.rattlebars.com/valkfaq/schematics/

[Momz]

Lt.Gene

Read my above post about the large blue terminal behind the dash. The very same thing happened to me in Daytona in 2007. I took my bike to Cycleworld Daytona and the tech had it diagnosed in five minutes. He called me into the service area to show me the corrosion problem, repaired the problem, and then wrote a letter for my local dealer about the problem. The letter was to let the dealership know that a new harness was needed (for warranty documentation, as my bike was still under warranty at that time).

[Skinhead]

Leave the connector apart in the rear fender, if the fuse doesn't blow, check for a short in the tail light assembly,  I spent 2 weeks fooling around with this problem, turned out to be a wire shorting to ground in the tail light.  If the fuse still blows with the tail light connector open.  Check out Momz's scenario.

[Lt.Gene]

Now to close this one out.  I ended up removing the fairing to check the dash connector and found absolutely pristine conditions there so tested the circuit and.....no blown fuse!!!  Found no wire breaks or shorts anywhere.  Moved the wire groups around under the right side cover and under the fairing and tested, still no blown fuse.  I absolutely hate chasing transitory electrical gremlins, but all seems back to normal.  Of course I know it isn't and will ride with trepidation just waiting for it to blown again.  Thanks to all who read this and those who commented.

[Thunderbolt]

Thanks for posting the results.  I know what you mean, it will probably be back.  I like to find the smoking gun so to speak.

[Lt.Gene]

Final Final entry.  As I feared, went out on a test ride and made it about ten miles before noticing no speedo and tach and every thing else as in the first instance.  Back home, removed tank and traced and traced and traced etc...finally isolated the short to some gauge lights I added about seven years ago.  Seems when I had the hard impact, the wire pinched.  Anyway, I believe I have it now and thanks to all. 

[pocobubba]

Hope your back to normal , good luck

[Thunderbolt]

Ah, the smoking gun we were looking for. 

[RP#62]

Thanks for following up and letting us know what it was.  Glad you were able to figure it out.
-RP