Gremlins appear to be gone... TJ chased them away!

[Tropic traveler]

Well.......... problem is hopefully solved.
Swapped the ignition switch from the '97 over to the '98, no change. Turns out after a phone call to TJ he remembered that someone had replaced their starter relay with one of the $11 Chinese ones from E-bay (which I had} & the battery cable mount points were backwards from the OEM Honda. Bingo! Closer examination of the E-bay relay showed the terminals were labeled opposite of the OE. After trying to swap the cables backwards, which did not work because of the offset hole in the cable ends, I just stuck the old OE relay back in & .... we have power! 
Immediately rode down to the local Honda shop & bought a new OEM relay {which they price matched HDL btw} and all is good now. Took it for a 10 mile or so ride then came home & started it in the driveway about 15 times. Perfect!
You would think myself being a partsman for GM & Ford for the last 27 years I would recognize the value of OEM parts over the cheaper knockoffs but I guess I had to re-learn that lesson the hard way today! Ended up putting the other smaller starter relay I had bought in too.
Well, at least I know all the cables & their contacts are squeaky clean, the battery is fully charged & good, the starter button is freshly serviced, & all connections under the RH cover are good to go too.
Thanks for all the suggestions & help from you guys & of course the special shout out to TJ... you big walrus!!!

[olddog1946]

Glad to hear that you've got her back out in the wind...but Jeez you don't need to be calling TJ names, lol..       

[Tropic traveler]

Glad to hear that you've got her back out in the wind...but Jeez you don't need to be calling TJ names, lol..      

Hey... Trick Rick started it!  

Rick is Fairy Dust & TJ is Chumley from the old Tennessee Tuxedo cartoon.

[Thunderbolt]

Yeah had the same thing happen on Iris's bike.  Bought the knockoff and had to modify the terminals on the wire to make it fit.  Worked fine for a short time.  It died not long after and found a used one on Pinwall.  It has been fine ever since.  Glad you got it going.

[hubcapsc]

I have the green amazon relay in my saddlebags in case of emergency...

Which ones did y'all have trouble with?





-Mike

[John Schmidt]

Note to Kim; hon, take a piece of tow rope with you next time you guys go riding.  

Glad you got it going, I'll bet you won't forget this lesson re. those Chinese parts. On Jay Leno a few nights back he commented about the rover the Chinese landed on the moon. It apparently isn't working right, having some major problems. His remark; the children that assembled it are upset because they worked so hard on it.  

[Thunderbolt]

Hey Mike I am pretty sure it is the green one.  Problem is that the +12V is on the wrong side.  You know right there on the front where the two large wires attach.  You can make it work, but you have to cut or file the wire connector to fit because the screw is too close to the center plastic divider.  It actually is labeled, but is opposite the OEM.  What this does is put the 12V feed to run the bike on the closed or make side of the relay and it will not power up the bike at all.  If you reverse the large cables/connectors it will work.  It might not be easy to do on the road.

[hubcapsc]

Hey Mike I am pretty sure it is the green one.  Problem is that the +12V is on the wrong side.  You know right there on the front where the two large wires attach.  You can make it work, but you have to cut or file the wire connector to fit because the screw is too close to the center plastic divider.  It actually is labeled, but is opposite the OEM.  What this does is put the 12V feed to run the bike on the closed or make side of the relay and it will not power up the bike at all.  If you reverse the large cables/connectors it will work.  It might not be easy to do on the road.

I figure if mine (or someone's) ever melts on the road, it will melt the connector too.

I'm working on some kind of pig tail to use on the side of the road...

I'm waiting on a $5 four-blade plug-in kind of pig tail to show up so see if that might work.

If not, I don't see why just making one out of four correctly-sized blade connectors
wouldn't be better than walking  ... there's no need for the little cover over the
fuse... seems like you just need four properly sized wires ready to plug onto those
four blades and splice that back where the melted-and-ruined-anyway plug is
on your main wiring harness...

I don't have an OEM relay to look at, I hope I can figure out where the wires go
when it is time... thanks for the warning... from your post, it sounds like, even
though there's four blades on the relay, we only use two?

-Mike

[Dozer]

Hey Mike I am pretty sure it is the green one.  Problem is that the +12V is on the wrong side.  You know right there on the front where the two large wires attach.  You can make it work, but you have to cut or file the wire connector to fit because the screw is too close to the center plastic divider.  It actually is labeled, but is opposite the OEM.  What this does is put the 12V feed to run the bike on the closed or make side of the relay and it will not power up the bike at all.  If you reverse the large cables/connectors it will work.  It might not be easy to do on the road.

I figure if mine (or someone's) ever melts on the road, it will melt the connector too.

I'm working on some kind of pig tail to use on the side of the road...


Just a few weeks ago I read an article about how to modify that green relay. The blocks are reversed and I believe backwards. I looked and looked for that article but didnt find it. I know I read it on this forum as a link. I thought it was Chets Rattlebars page or Mark Ts page but I didnt see it there either. It was very clear, concise and had highly detailed pics. If you can find it and modify that aftermarket relay, you'll have a winner. It was a very simple task to do. If someone does find the link please post it so I can save the link....





I'm waiting on a $5 four-blade plug-in kind of pig tail to show up so see if that might work.

If not, I don't see why just making one out of four correctly-sized blade connectors
wouldn't be better than walking  ... there's no need for the little cover over the
fuse... seems like you just need four properly sized wires ready to plug onto those
four blades and splice that back where the melted-and-ruined-anyway plug is
on your main wiring harness...

I don't have an OEM relay to look at, I hope I can figure out where the wires go
when it is time... thanks for the warning... from your post, it sounds like, even
though there's four blades on the relay, we only use two?

-Mike

[Thunderbolt]

Take a look at this sheet from RP's diagrams.  See where it says "to starter" the fuse on the cheapo replacement is on that side, no connection to the battery.  So the Red wire that goes to your ignition switch for IGN1 and IGN2 never get power.  As far as something to get you going on the road as long as you have power to the red wire the ignition should function.  Shorting the heavy wire from the battery to the one that goes to the starter with 12V applied to the red wire and she should start.  Just make sure it is out of gear.

http://www.rattlebars.com/valkfaq/schematics/rpage02.html

[Tundra]

  Glad you got her running Eddie
Electrical issues suck for me to, not my thing. I have had the same problem and replaced with OEM, sorry I forgot to mention that. Come to think of it, I've replaced about everything on my bike. Mine was the worst Valkyrie ever built, although it has been pretty trouble free the last couple of years.

[TJ]

Well.......... problem is hopefully solved.

What the hell do you mean hopefully.......................

[Tropic traveler]

Well.......... problem is hopefully solved.

What the hell do you mean hopefully.......................

Well, I'm still not sure what caused to original "click" under the RH side cover. I compounded the problem by putting the Chinese bass-ackwards wired relay on the bike causing the total no power situation I had.
I'm hoping a brand new OEM Honda relay has solved the original click & no start problem that prompted me to but the cheap relay on the bike. It almost has to be the relay but even if it wasn't I hit about everything else it coulda been before I called you! 

[Tropic traveler]

Just to clarify the relay difference, it was the large cables that come from the battery positive terminal & go to the starter that were backwards. While I was on the phone with TJ he mentioned that he had heard of cheapo relays being wired wrong. I grabbed the old OE Honda relay & closely examined the cable mounting points.
On the OEM Honda the cable from the battery is on the RH side of the relay, labeled with a "B", and the starter side is on the LH side, labeled with "M".
On the cheapo they were reversed. Other than that the relays look identical.
As Thunderbolt mentioned the offset of the holes in the cables make it very hard to swap sides.

[Rio Wil]

I thought you would have figured it out by now.....that relay is not incorrectly made.  There are a few versions of it that are used on about a thousand different bikes.  Look at the pictures on ebay and you will see the B and M markings reversed on many of them depending on their application.  Also note many of those sellers indicate the relay is for a Valkyrie with the footnote of check the B and M marks. So you either ordered the wrong one or the seller did not describe the part sufficiently for you to make the proper choice.

[Tropic traveler]

I thought you would have figured it out by now.....that relay is not incorrectly made.  There are a few versions of it that are used on about a thousand different bikes.  Look at the pictures on ebay and you will see the B and M markings reversed on many of them depending on their application.  Also note many of those sellers indicate the relay is for a Valkyrie with the footnote of check the B and M marks. So you either ordered the wrong one or the seller did not describe the part sufficiently for you to make the proper choice.

Yep. That's exactly what happened. The listing said all years Valkyrie along with a slew of other bikes.
I typed in the Honda OE part number in the search box and.....
Then that "assume" thing took over.