Electrical help needed

[..]

I'm an electrical dummy.

Rode through a downpour last week. Parked outside my room at the motel. Fork mounted lights come on all by themselves, Kuryakan,

Put bike on centre stand to investigate they go off and stay off for the next 4 days. Even when riding through downpours.

Get home, strip plastic to find the relay is fried, something rattles inside it. Replace relay, still no lights. I can't see any rub marks on the wires where the circuit may have shorted. The bulbs in the lights are good. Inline fuse is good.

Suggestions?

I don't have a volt meter thingy. Would do more harm with it than good.

[Capt. Morgan]

Well let's start at the basics:
Where are you getting the power source for the "trigger"? On my I/S I'm using the 5amp Aux wire. That circuit is also fused, so that may be your power loss.
Only other thing I can think of is maybe your switch is bad also.

[..]

Well let's start at the basics:
Where are you getting the power source for the "trigger"? On my I/S I'm using the 5amp Aux wire. That circuit is also fused, so that may be your power loss.
Only other thing I can think of is maybe your switch is bad also.

Power direct from battery.

No switch, lights come on with ignition.

[Madmike]

Do you have a relay that has 5 terminals??  If so you may have the wire from the relay to the lights hooked to the incorrect terminal.  Terminal 87 is the terminal that is "hot" when the control circuit of the relay is energised, if you have it connected to 87A it will have no power when the relay is energised.


If you want to stay away from a multimeter you may want to consider a continuity tester.  It is like a screwdriver with a light bulb or LED in it and a has a wire attached.  It can be used to indicate whether a circuit has power or if a fuse is good.  Hook the roach clip to a good ground and touch the probe to power and the light should come on.

Another way to check for power is to take a short piece of multi strand wire, strip both ends back about and inch, on one end separate on strand out and bend it away from the rest of the wires,  now hold the end that is still bundled to where you expect power to be and then touch the single strand that you have separated out to a good ground and watch to see if you get a spark.  This is a "bush fix" that will work on light circuits etc. that have a decent fuse in them as teh single strand will not conduct enough power to burn out the fuse.

Other than that there are 2 likely potential problems:

Control circuit of the relay is not energised  or is incomplete or no power to main circuit of relay or not complete

Is there a fuse in the wire that comes from the battery to the relay?? If so check it and make sure that it is good.

The relay should "click" when you send control power to it, if it isn't you likely have a bad relay or bad control circuit.

You could "jump" the main circuit of the relay by taking a short length of wire and jumpering between the wire that comes from the battery to the relay (terminal 30) and the wire that goes from the relay to the lights (terminal 87)  If you have lights then the problem is either in the control circuit or the relay.  If you don't have lights then check the ground wire for the lights.   

You could jump power to the control circuit (terminals 85 and 86, one should be power in from ignition and other should go to ground) to whichever terminal is hooked to the ignition switch.

[..]

Problem solved thnaks. I kept tweaking everything. Undid all the wires and grounds. Cleaned everything and eventually it worked.

A touch of Zen & The Art of ..............................