A new relay mod for yall

[raistian77]

I was loosing 1.2volts between the battery and fuse box. Found it was being lost in the ignition switch.

I cut the wire coming from the ignition switch and fuse box feed.
Ran the wire from the ignition switch to the switching terminal of the relay
Connected the other side of the switching to ground
One side of switched to hot terminal of battery (place a 40 amp fuse inline) the other to your fuse box feed.

 

[mustangflyr]

I was loosing 1.2volts between the battery and fuse box. Found it was being lost in the ignition switch.

I cut the wire coming from the ignition switch and fuse box feed.
Ran the wire from the ignition switch to the switching terminal of the relay
Connected the other side of the switching to ground
One side of switched to hot terminal of battery (place a 40 amp fuse inline) the other to your fuse box feed.

Did this earlier this year when I converted to a blade fuse box, easy to do and reduces the possibility of smoke escaping from the wiring. Used a 15 amp main fuse like original though.

 

[Steve]

Many are already using a relay to power the coils.

Personally, I think it makes more sense to use one to power the fuse box, that way, EVERYTHING benefits from the better supply.

.

 

[Guest]

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How does putting the fuse box on a relay provide a better supply?

 

[Hammered]

Having electric issues right now, Im wondering something. Would a shut off be a good idea to stop the drain on the battery during say times its sitting while Im at work? I have a few weeks of riding left after I install the new stator this weekend and if this seems like an easy way to stop the drain, Ill do that at the same time.

 

[bonanzadave]

How does putting the fuse box on a relay provide a better supply?

Most of these 20-30 year old Bikes had the supply voltage to the fuse box routed through the ignition switch. With the resistance from dirty connectors, switches, and old wire there was some battery voltage drop before the voltage made it to the fuse box. By using the ignition switch to control a relay you can basically bypass those voltage drops and have direct battery voltage to the fuse box.

 

[DPage]

I know this is important somehow, but my bike starts right up and the battery lasts 3-4 years. Yes, the headlight dims when starting, so what? If the bike is in good shape, I see no point in cutting up your original wiring harness. The electrics on GS's aren't great, but down the road, this and other electrical improvements just seem like one more complication to blame on the "prior owner" when the next guy buys it. And what happens in 10 years when all these fancy relays you're putting in get old?

No offense, this just seems like how to come up with a magic fix that ignores other problems with the bike. Kind of like that thread the other day about how to put chemicals in the battery acid to make it last longer. Buy a new battery, and be done with it! If you're buying too many batteries, there's some other problem.

 

[Steve]

If the bike is in good shape, I see no point in cutting up your original wiring harness. ...

I agree whole-heartedly. :clap: :clap:

However, not all of our 30-year-old harnesses are "in good shape".

On my wife's bike, the fuse panel is original, but I have added a relay to power an auxiliary power strip for the accessories. I have also added a relay to turn the headlight off while the starter button is being pushed.

On my son's bike, I think everything is still stock.

On my bike, the headlight fuse clip got warm enough to sink into the plastic, making it impossible to put a fuse in there. (Not proud to admit it, but I have a jumper wire in there to keep the lights on.) A new fuse box/panel is on the list for the over-winter projects.

Although the "relay mod" is a popular item because people have bothered to actually measure the voltage at the coils, I think if they measured the voltage at the headlight, they would probably find a similarly low voltage. Ensuring full voltage to the fuse panel by not running power through dirty ignition switch contacts would definitely benefit the whole bike.

.

 

[mustangflyr]

Relay

Relay

I know this is important somehow, but my bike starts right up and the battery lasts 3-4 years. Yes, the headlight dims when starting, so what? If the bike is in good shape, I see no point in cutting up your original wiring harness. The electrics on GS's aren't great, but down the road, this and other electrical improvements just seem like one more complication to blame on the "prior owner" when the next guy buys it. And what happens in 10 years when all these fancy relays you're putting in get old?

No offense, this just seems like how to come up with a magic fix that ignores other problems with the bike. Kind of like that thread the other day about how to put chemicals in the battery acid to make it last longer. Buy a new battery, and be done with it! If you're buying too many batteries, there's some other problem.

When I converted mine I didn't alter the wiring harness, I tried to design the changes to plug and play, with easy return to original. It's been changed not butchered.

 

[850GT_Rider]

I know this is important somehow, but my bike starts right up and the battery lasts 3-4 years. Yes, the headlight dims when starting, so what? If the bike is in good shape, I see no point in cutting up your original wiring harness. The electrics on GS's aren't great, but down the road, this and other electrical improvements just seem like one more complication to blame on the "prior owner" when the next guy buys it. And what happens in 10 years when all these fancy relays you're putting in get old?

No offense, this just seems like how to come up with a magic fix that ignores other problems with the bike. Kind of like that thread the other day about how to put chemicals in the battery acid to make it last longer. Buy a new battery, and be done with it! If you're buying too many batteries, there's some other problem.

+1 on your last sentence - make sure to fix the problem(s) and not just the symptom(s).

On the other hand, I think to say "The electrics on GS's aren't great........" is the understatement of the year. It's universally accepted that the electrical circuits and components are the Achilles heel of these bikes. They're certainly not down at the level of the Brit's Lucas "Prince of Darkness" problems, but they have problems nonetheless.

Just look at the number of threads on this site that include 'melted wires'. There is almost no way a properly designed & fused circuit should ever melt wires or burn up components. It's also really dumb to route heavy-current wiring all the way to the handlebars and then all the way back to the fuse box.

Since I am fortunate to have the skills and tools, a full re-wire is among my planned winter projects. But also included will be the Honda R/R, proper connectors, a new fuse box, relay mods, etc, - all intended to eliminate or at least minimize any further electrical issues.

 

[raistian77]

I know this is important somehow, but my bike starts right up and the battery lasts 3-4 years. Yes, the headlight dims when starting, so what? If the bike is in good shape, I see no point in cutting up your original wiring harness. The electrics on GS's aren't great, but down the road, this and other electrical improvements just seem like one more complication to blame on the "prior owner" when the next guy buys it. And what happens in 10 years when all these fancy relays you're putting in get old?

No offense, this just seems like how to come up with a magic fix that ignores other problems with the bike. Kind of like that thread the other day about how to put chemicals in the battery acid to make it last longer. Buy a new battery, and be done with it! If you're buying too many batteries, there's some other problem.

Normally I would agree, however I wont and I will explain why.

When manufactures design and build vehicle there are always things that will fail religiously that the manufacture did not for-see. In the Ford Triton power plant it is the spark plug design that fails and allows the plug to be ejected from the engine. Harmonic balancers in GM 3.8s had a bad habit of failing along with their C3M control modules due to insufficient grounding.

With the GS Suzuki we are talking about a vehicle that was designed with a electrical system that was, for lack of better term 'thrown together'.
Normally manufactures use relays to prevent voltage drop and overheating by avoiding ruining power up and down the bike unnecessarily. Take for example the coil, power is sent from the battery to the ignition switch to the fuse box back to the kill switch back down the bike to the coil. Even in perfect condition this much wire will cause a voltage drop.

As for fancy relays failing? Common seriously? Do you own a car? Modern one? Well here's a surprise, a modern vehicle has up to .....40 relays and multiple computer modules. How often have you had to replace them? Probably not much.

So you take a bike that has an insufficient electrical system from the factory, add 30+ years ( manufacture expected vehicle life span is 10 years) and expect that alterations to the wring are unnecessary?
When you deal with classic vehicles (anything double the lifespan, 20years or more) modifications are often necessary to continue the life of the vehicle. Two of my customers are model T owners, we have had to place electric fuel shut off solenoids in the fuel supply line. The original cork float stopper valves tend to fail after all this time and were to unreliable even when new.

"Don't fix it if it ain't broke", is the mantra of a lazy man. My motto is "Make sure it doesn't break"

 

[posplayr]

in the case of my GS1100ED I bought a new harness, new left and right hand controls, and a newer FET based R/R . The only things electrical that were still old were the various component (black boxes) with their associated connectors. I did the recommended R/R wiring changes including the head lamp loop. Still after about 1 year I started having starting problems which went away after doing a coil relay mod. My initial inclination was to keep the harness stock, but I'm not going to replace the harness annually.

I did a version of the coil relay mod that completely powers my ignition circuit with minimum (if any changes to the harness) as well as a minimum number of contacts.

 

[raistian77]

in the case of my GS1100ED I bought a new harness, new left and right hand controls, and a newer FET based R/R . The only things electrical that were still old were the various component (black boxes) with their associated connectors. I did the recommended R/R wiring changes including the head lamp loop. Still after about 1 year I started having starting problems which went away after doing a coil relay mod. My initial inclination was to keep the harness stock, but I'm not going to replace the harness annually.

I did a version of the coil relay mod that completely powers my ignition circuit with minimum (if any changes to the harness) as well as a minimum number of contacts.

As you know there is a huge difference between hacking the wiring to avoid repairing the problem and redesigning the system to be more efficient. Many of the mods you introduced were a vast improvement over the original design. Like you stated you had problems with the coil even with the new harness. I believe the problem stems from running almost 20 foot of wire and various components just to bring power 3 feet. Low amperage relays almost never fail, most of the ones I have had to replace over the years are coolant fan (30-40 Amp), heater fan (same) and fuel pump.

 

[posplayr]

As you know there is a huge difference between hacking the wiring to avoid repairing the problem and redesigning the system to be more efficient. Many of the mods you introduced were a vast improvement over the original design. Like you stated you had problems with the coil even with the new harness. I believe the problem stems from running almost 20 foot of wire and various components just to bring power 3 feet. Low amperage relays almost never fail, most of the ones I have had to replace over the years are coolant fan (30-40 Amp), heater fan (same) and fuel pump.

BTW, this is the mod I was referring to. It minimizes cuts and has only one extra connector. I think it is more the connections that corrode than the wire length. Granted the guage is light but wire should not degrade in one year. For that matter the connections should not either but my bike got progressively worse to where it was requiring starting fluid when cold till I saw I was only getting about 10.5V at the coils.

Did the mod and it hits instantly now.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=141055&highlight=coil+relay+mod

One of the other little improvements is to actually open the harness up and solder the crimp connection i the primary orange and ground Black/White wires. most of those are just a few inches from where the R/R pig tail connects (on my ED at least).


Oh and thanks for the complements.

 

[Steve]

My only problem (Well I could live with it) is that the left side and battery of the bike is starting to look like a jungle. I don't like "Spaghetti electrics"...

So I guest one of my next projects will be to find a way to cleanup and do the mod.

DP

I have both of those situations on my wife's bike (for now). I have added a relay to cut the headlight off when the starter is activated, and have another relay that provides power to the farkles, via a terminal strip on the right side.

I am not planning on taking on any major projects this winter (I might not be home to work on them), so this might have a chance on getting cleaned up.

The picture of the terminal strip was taken when about half-way through the project. LOTS more wires on there now.

.

 

[Sandy]

The relay mods are a good idea to help take the load off the crappy ignition switch in particular and provide the proper voltage to components. However if you have a large voltage drop across the switch it's going to get worst before it gets better. If you clean the ignition as well as other switches and install a relay that's what I would consider a long term fix. If you install a relay without doing that I consider it a bandaid fix and the switch could deteriorate until it no longer can even power the relay. Providing you don't have a fairing installed it probably takes about as long to properly clean the ignition switch as it does to install the relay mod. Do what's right for you and your GS so hopefully you won't have to revisit that problem on the side of the road somewhere. Me, I was going to do the relay mod for the coils because I had a huge drop across the ignition switch and after removing and cleaning the switch first I had about .5V drop so I called it a day. I will keep an eye on it though. Oh yeah, buy a good relay like the Bosch ones because some of the cheap (Chinese) ones are not reliable and WILL leave you working on the bike at the side of the road.

 

[raistian77]

Did clean the ignition contacts, but I dont trust em to hold up. Also I wanted to lower the amperage on the switch. Remeber ALL the power the bike is receiving is going through the switch, no car or truck in the world runs the entire amperage draw through the switch.