Ignition Help

[BA80]

With the switch,alternator, and regulator unplugged and all the fuses fed by the tan wire removed ther should be you should be reading infinity in that wire to ground.

No continuety whatsoever.

[spayne83]

Yeah, when I disconnect the rectifier and the fuses I get no continuity, but then I hook up the rectifier and it jumps back to 2.7 k ohms.

On the other tan wires at the headlight, I am still getting 6.8 k ohms.

[BA80]

That may be normal. I'll go see on my SF what it reads at the regulator.

Maybe someone will jump in here that knows for sure.

I'll let you know what mine does.

[BA80]

OK.....with the reg unplugged I'm reading 020 through the reg to ground in the tan wire. 0 ohms (total cont) on the tan wire from the harness to ground with the ignition, alternator and all fuses in place.

These readings are on the 2000K scale.

[BA80]

I think your wiring is fine. Possibly a fruity regulator but more likely just bad connections at the connectors.

[crazy steve]

There is 2.5 ohms of continuity between the tan wire at the switch and the ground with the power off, so I assume that something is grounding out in the wiring harness.

Maybe, but you need to isolate that tan wire more. Unplug both the field coil (tan and green wires) and the regulator and see if it clears. If not, remove the fuses one at a time while checking. If removing a fuse clears it, then you need to start tracing the circuit(s) fed from that fuse. If none of this clears it, then the tan wire itself is grounding out between the switch and the fuse panel.

[BA80]

There will always be continuity with the fuses in. That tan wire powers up 3 fuses and nearly everything on the bike.

He did isolate the wire in the harness Steve and there doesn't seem to be a short.

If you go back to post #6 you'll see that the problem he is chasing is the tan wire from the ignition switch getting hot.

Everything seems to be testing well. I'm thinking there may be a weak connection at a plug causing the circuit to over heat.

[jwhughes3]

+1 on Greg's bad connections.

Poor conductivity is a sure way to heat up a wire. Bad connections, hot wires, hardens insulation, cracks lead to more corrosion and worse conductivity (electrons travel along OUTSIDE of the wire)

John

[crazy steve]

Everything seems to be testing well. I'm thinking there may be a weak connection at a plug causing the circuit to over heat.

Could also be a factory splice going bad; that wire is tapped twice (regulator and field coil) and spliced where it splits into three wires at the fuse box...

[spayne83]

I redid all of the factory splices (with one exception, the red wire splice by the front of the bike) so those "should" be fine. I also sprayed all the connections with DeOxit. Should I also try going in with a wire wheel on the dremel to clean up those connectors even more?

[crazy steve]

Look here for how to use your VOM to check for bad connections: http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35339

And if you 'redid' factory connections with the typical insulated crimp connectors and crimper from the parts house, that may be your problem. Those don't consistantly give a good connection, particularly in a high-current circuit. Even solder will give problems (not recommended) if you have 'cold joints' or if exposed to heating.

For a thorough discussion of crimping, look here... http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...ight=soldering

[spayne83]

Thanks for that, I'll check that when I get home.

As for the redoing of the wiring harness, I read that thread prior to rewiring and I went with uninsulated crimps (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1) with a proper crimper (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and then covered them with heat-shrink. I am 90% certain that the crimps are not the issue unless I crimped a wire in one that I shouldn't have.

[crazy steve]

I went with uninsulated crimps (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1) with a proper crimper...

Right crimp tool, but I will comment on the sleeves. Yamaha selected wire sizes that are barely adequate current-wise for some circuits (the charging system and power to/from the ignition switch in particular), so any degrading can quickly show up as problems. If you had to 'haircut' (trim strands) any wire to fit it into the sleeve before crimping, that's a potential trouble point. They also used metric wire sizes that don't exactly translate into AWG sizes, so a bit more care needs to be taken when crimping. Too big of a sleeve can be as bad as too small. I use three sizes; 10-12, 14-16, and 18-20. When tying more than two wires together with a crimp, make sure you have both ends of the sleeve 'filled' with wire before crimping, by doubling the wire strands over if need be. Never trim strands off, that will reduce ampacity, use a larger sleeve instead.

[spayne83]

The resistance across those connectors is .2 ohms for all of the wires.
Could that point to a bad rectifier?

Didn't trim any of the wires to make them fit, but thanks for the heads up.