| Author | Message | ||
     Richx186 |
Replaced starter relay, voltage regulator six months old, battery year old, turn key, all good, turn on kill switch everything primes up, press start button and click, all connections tight, clean and secure, thought battery was no good maybe, put a 200 amp jump on it, just clicked louder... help.... | ||
| Hootowl |
Disconnect the battery. Remove the starter solenoid cover. Inspect the ring and side contacts. I suspect that one of the side contacts is badly receded, causing the plunger to fail to make contact. The plunger will only rock sideways in the bore so far before it stops making contact. The solenoid contacts can be replaced without removing the starter. | ||
| Richx186 |
Thankyou | ||
| Richx186 |
So where can I get these side contacts from that are in the starter solenoid? | ||
| Hootowl |
Any harley dealer, or any hd parts place online like jpcycles.com etc. or even ebay and amazon. | ||
| Buell_bert |
Hate to say it but you DID make sure that the battery to frame ground is clean??? Did you also check for voltage drops and resistance thru the connections? | ||
| Hootowl |
Yes. It may not be the contacts. Inspection is in order, and it's a simple check. They are, however, wear items, so it usn't unusual at all to have to replace them. | ||
| Richx186 |
The contacts look clean and not worn at all. | ||
| Hootowl |
Replace the plunger in the bore, being careful that it does not spring back out. Reconnect the battery. Push the plunger into the contacts. Keep in mind that if everything is working correctly, this will make sparks and noise and your engine will crank. Don't jerk back and let the plunger fly out. It'll probably melt the spring against the contacts if it does. Just carefully release the plunger from the contacts without letting it come out of the bore. If the engine does not crank when you do this, you most likely have a weak battery, or corrosion somewhere in the terminals or the engine ground strap. There's nothing between the positive terminal, those contacts, and the negative terminal, except the starter windings and the battery cables and ground strap. If it DOES crank, bypass your ignition switch. The current for the solenoid actuation windings goes through the switch. If the switch contacts are marginal, they can prevent enough current from flowing through the windings to push the plunger into the contacts. Tuber ignition switches are known to fail also. | ||
| 01x1buell |
he just dropped the bike off. we r going to work on it this weekend but i took a quik look at it. the battery voltage is at 10.7 and when the ignition is turned on it drops to 7.0 and the dash flickers on and off and the fuel pump barely makes a sound. so i believe that the battery is now bad,,, but why did it go bad. we r going to test the VR and ther stator for resistance . then go from there. any other input would be appreciated. maybe he can get more in depth in the things leading up to this like it dying on a ride. then the relay going bad. then this happens. | ||
| Richx186 |
Just cruzing the bike shut off, still rolling pulled in clutch and restarted bike, bike went for another mile or so shut off again, tried to refire on side of road, starter relay was buzzing, battery at 12.5/6 volts, less then 48 hours later replace relay, battery at 10.3 volts, mind you no key was in ignition during any of those 48 hours, where the two volts go? Battery was decently new. | ||
| Spiderman |
this is an odd thing that happened to me once as well. new batteries rebuilt all aspects of the starter New starter New VR I was about to replace the stator when I noticed a weird thing, the wire from the Neutral indicator switch was smoking. Some how there was short in that switch causing a failure in the system. As soon as I unplugged the wire there was no further issues. rebuil | ||
| 01x1buell |
We are going to go through everything tomorrow with tests and wiggle test all the good stuff. What is the best way to test the ignition? | ||
| Jim2 |
Take the battery out and bring it to an autoparts store or battery's plus and have them load test it. Even a new battery can go bad sometimes. The ignition switch can be ohm'ed out at the disconnected plug. As you move the key from off to accs. to on, you can tell if the ohm meter reacts accordingly. I think there are only three pins. Ground, accessory, and run. I believe you can turn off the kill switch, disconnect the ignition plug and jumper the battery side of the plug so that it is always on using a good sized wire with lugs crimped on. Disconnect the negative of the battery when doing this stuff and only reconnect when testing. Then you can use the kill switch as the ignition switch having effectively bypassed the key switch. I don't always remember so good so my apologies if I got any of this wrong. | ||
| 01x1buell |
Thanks any help is appreciated. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this . | ||
| 01x1buell |
It is the ignition switch. I bypassed it and it started. | ||
| 01x1buell |
i remember buying an ignition years ago, but where can i find one now??? | ||
| Harleyelf |
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IGNITION-SWITCH-WITH-ROUND -KEY-HARLEY-IGNITION-SWITCH-CHROME-3-POSITION-SWIT CH/161990125105?_trksid=p5713.c100043.m2062&_trkpa rms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D2%26asc% 3D20140502134130%26meid%3D838c5a29799d47bda79919c4 d1678115%26pid%3D100043%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26mehot %3Dag%26sd%3D161990125105 | ||
| 01x1buell |
Thank you i haven't had a chance to look yet. I guess that is just what I needed . Thanks. | ||
| Jim2 |
When I replaced mine, I bought one from American Sport Bike, a option we sadly no longer have. Like the eBay one above it had the circular lugs. I bought some nice spade lugs that were a close match for the spade lugs on the OEM ignition switch. I was able to cut off the circular lugs and crimp on the new spade lugs. This allowed using the original connector without any additional splice. I had to slightly relieve some plastic on the openings of the OEM connector to allow a good fit. It all sounds complicated but it was really easy and all I needed was a crimper, wire stripper, a small file and new spade legs from the local hardware store. | ||
| Harleyelf |
That one I posted the link to is not off - taillight (key removable) - engine and headlamp, as is the original. It seems to be made in America as an upgrade to the old flat-key Sportster side-mount switch. It's key cannot be removed in the first "on" position, and it goes off - ignition - ignition and headlamp. Or, if you bridge the two output wires, it could go off - engine, taillamp, and headlamps - engine, taillamp, and headlamp and work the same in both "on" positions. I use heat-shrink wrap and lap solder the wires. I bought one today to use on my Softtail, I'll let you know if it's a good switch in about a week. | ||
| Two_seasons |
That switch, Drag Specialties, in my opinion, is a piece of crap!  Anything short of a replacement HD ignition switch and you're kidding yourself. (Message edited by two_seasons on June 06, 2016) | ||
| Hootowl |
When this happened to me, I wired it so that the ignition switch just operated a relay. All the current that the bike needs goes through the relay. The bad switch was still good enough to power the relay. $5 fix, and permanent. | ||
| Harleyelf |
Made in Taiwan, distributed by V-Twin, does not look to be robust enough for hard use. | ||
| Alfau |
You are supposed to shut the engine off by turning the key to cut power, then depress the key and turn one further click to shut off accessories ( park lights, radio, phone charger etc.), then extract the key. You can extract the key with the ignition in the accessory position but it will flatten your battery eventually if you leave it there. If you force the key through the accessory position without depressing it will destroy the switch. | ||
| Harleyelf |
Park lights? I've got a tail light, anything else is owner-added. Removing the key with the tail light burning is for parking on the shoulder of the road at night. If I did that a lot I might add a low-draw LED park lamp, because those two 1157 bulbs can drain a battery flat. The switch I got from Al has been working fine for five years now. I sure miss being able to get parts from him. | ||
| Brentx1 |
Ground, ground, ground. Just went through the same thing. Took me a long time to find it. But, I would only work on it for about 10 minutes before becoming frustrated. Found the bad ground on the bottom of the battery tray. All good now. | ||
| Dave |
Speaking of bad grounds https://youtu.be/SRrtmTRWPLc DAve | ||
| 01x1buell |
OK so we replaced the ignition the relays and the battery.(they where all bad) we checked the stator and the VR. all checks out. The bike started fine ran fine took it for a test ride all is well charging great soooooo..... now he went to take it on a ride today and all was good then boom it died again. turn the key on it lights up fine hit the switch to turn on the pump turns on and all is good. but then go to start all goes dead and dark.  so what the hell else could it be. Please help me with this. | ||
| 01x1buell |
i am still waiting on further info on the status off the battery. |
