| Author | Message | ||
     Joenuclear |
I left my GPS on and drained my battery. When I jumped the bike the ignition fuse blew and continues to blow every time I replace it and turn on the ignition switch. Any ideas as to what is causing this? | ||
| Ratbuell |
How did you jump the bike, from a running car? Non-running car? Jump box? A running car can overload the circuitry and you might have damaged something in the system, causing the fuse to blow. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Getting the polarity wrong when you jumped it would cause these issues too IIRC. | ||
| Joenuclear |
Jumped from a non running truck with the correct polarity. | ||
| Chrisrogers3 |
Joe, Pull apart the connector from the ignition system to the main wiring harness and look at the pins (I think there are 4 pins) make sure they arent corroded and put some connector lube on at that connection. See if that helps. Also not to insult your intelligence but did you put the right size fuse back in? IIRC that one is a 15 amp. I may be mistaken though. | ||
| Joenuclear |
Chris, It's a 15 all right, I've put about 6 in so far.  | ||
| Hmartin |
Did it ever start, or did the fuse blow right after you hooked up the jumper cables? So, the ignition fuse blows as soon as the switch is turned on, but the key switch fuse is OK? How do your relays look? The ignition fuse should be between the key switch relay and the ignition relay. A burnt out key switch relay could conceivably bypass the key switch fuse and burn out the ignition fuse. Are any other fuses burnt? (Message edited by hmartin on April 20, 2009) | ||
| Ronmold |
Hmartin, I know you mean well and we're all here wanting to be helpful but please be cautious with electrical advice if you're not completely positive (pun intended) about the answers. Jumping should not put any stress on the voltage regulator of the jumped vehicle at all since jumping only brings the voltage up to the level that it normally lives at. Yes there can be a lot of current flow when jumping but only battery to battery. You are right about the regulator, if bad they can cause over-voltage but only when engine is running. The fuse blows as soon as the ign is turned on. Joenuke, pull your Ign. relay in the fuseblock and put in a new Ign. fuse and turn the key on. That circuit goes several places and a simple process of elimination (and my handy service manual) will help sort this out. My manual is an '06 and I don't know if there are many changes in subsequent models. That fuse goes directly to the Inst cluster & RH control and then to the supply of the Ign relay. if you pull the relay and it still blows it's one of the direct connections. If jumping caused this I would also think reversed polarity (cables wrong) when jumping but you said no. Keep us informed, I love a good electrical challenge! | ||
| Hmartin |
 Did I overrun my headlights? What I was thinking was that if the motor had actually started, then, if the voltage regulator was struggling to lower the voltage that's coming over the jumper cables, it could kill itself and/or burn up the 77 connector (a known issue) trying to bleed off extra voltage up until something failed. Some XB owners have had to replace more than one VR. I see that I didn't make that clear, though. If I'm still all wet, I'll own up to it. I'm not about to pick a fight with someone who sees this stuff every day.  Anyway, upon further review, I see that it was jumped from another 12V battery, so it's not likely the jump would give the VR a higher voltage than it could take. I'll go in and strike that from my last post. Like Joenuclear, I suspect that the battery jump had something to do with it, although I think it's more common to see these kinds of things caused by wires that have worn through over time and are shorting to ground. That's why I hate electrical problems. You've just got to start unplugging stuff and testing them. | ||
| Ronmold |
Hey, I'm ignorant, how did you strike out that line? Factory specs state any voltage below 15 is not excessive so the VR would not "kick-in" until over maybe 14.4 or so. I'm not sure which type of regulator they use and keep in mind these are a rectifier/regulator, it converts the AC to DC with diodes and then it tries to keep it at a even level. There's two ways to regulate that voltage. The older style is when it senses voltage above a break-over point it shunts the excess current to ground, or in this case shorts the red & black wires together internally which brings the voltage down below the mark fast. Then the cycle starts all over again. The battery usually was the biggest shunt in the circuit and kept things fairly stable. Older Merc outboards were like this and when a bat terminal would work loose it could no longer act as a shunt and the VR would have to do it all and "poof"! The newer VR's have electronic regulation which when sensing high voltage simply shut off the current making process. I believe the Buell unit is this style or maybe a combo of the two. Either way it's still bad to lose a connection to the battery while making juice. The "77" is probably a great connector in a controlled environment but not crammed next to a hot, vibrating engine. Coincidence that a wire wore through at the same time he was jumping? Stranger things have happened. | ||
| Joenuclear |
I was never able to jump the bike. When I attempted to I heard what I think was the fan running. Upon hearing that noise I stopped the attempt to jump and put the bike on the trickle charger all night. The next morning with a fully charged battery the fuses started blowing. Ronmold, In the morning I will pull the ignition relay and insert an new fuse and post the results. | ||
| Ronmold |
If your battery was OK a GPS shouldn't draw enough to kill a good battery over night. There must be another short/draw somewhere. | ||
| Joenuclear |
Ronmold, The GPS was left on for a week. However,.... Success! Per your instructions I pulled the ignition relay and replaced the fuse. I had lights and the fuse didn't blow. I then pulled the AUX relay and put it in the ignition relay position and the Uly started! I'm calling the dealer now to see if they have a relay. Thanks everyone for you ideas and advice. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Joe- If your dealer doesn't have one, it is a very common relay. Take it to your local auto parts store and ask them to match it. One match I know of is the A/C relay on a ~2005 Ford Focus. Cost is ~$10. Glad you got it figured out. (Message edited by hughlysses on April 21, 2009) | ||
| Joenuclear |
Thanks for the info Hughlysses. The dealer had 1 in stock @ $5.95 plus tax. They tested the battery and all is good. | ||
| Ironslede68 |
going to try this too. the fan running happened to mine when my neibor hooked up my battery backwards, been have the same problem ever since. | ||
| Ironslede68 |
she cranked, i had two relays shorted across the coil |
