I learned today where my overload protector for the bike is, and how to use it.

turns out, I did SOMETHING when I serviced my left handlebar cluster earlier, mostly tightening up the loose screw on the turn signal selector, and cleaning it out a little. now it trips the relay on my bike in a minute of the key being on.

whats weird is, ALL I did to the elctrical stuff was resolder a power wire for the turn signal, and clean connections. if anything, it should have beefed up the contacts.

I know I need to run an ohm meter on everything, but any advice on a common fault to look at would be helpful. I know its in that section, just not sure WHERE exactly.

Electrical fault finding generally uses the 'half split' method. Test half way along a circuit and you've eliminated half of it in one go.

If you suspect the left cluster, then the best I can suggest is to disconnect it from the harness and ensure the bike is fine like that - if so you've already eliminated a huge portion of the electrics.

Using the Mark 1 eyeball, have a close look at ALL the wiring in the faulty section, to make sure any rubber boots (over clutch switches etc) are not pin holed and shorting to the bars. Next open the switch cluster and again, check all insulation for holes, chaffing or other signs of degradation.

One possibility is you've managed to get a strand of wire across two contacts during your re-soldering / cleaning. Quite hard to spot!

If you can strip the various components out of the switch (take a pic before you start so you know how it all goes back in) you can then plug the loom back into the bike and then wriggle all the wires about to try and re-create the fault.

If it's all going well, then rebuild the switch with the bike power on, so you'll know if you refit the faulty item. Be careful of causing a fault by touching things together which shouldn't be of course!

If at any point the bike trips off, then you have your fault.



(Hope this isn't teaching you to suck eggs!)

I spent a few minutes earlier probing with my multimeter, I think I know what happened now. theres a metal retainer that is supposed to hold the wires coming into the cluster down, I put it in wrong and it may have been shorting headlight wires to the turn signals. I have no way of knowing 100% since I lack signals, but I think this is the case.

I think now I've got the issue fixed. I installed something backwards and it was touching the turn signal block, grouning it out on the bars, no longer doing so, so its likely fixed.