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Finally went ahead and did this

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adler
  • Start date Start date
A

Adler

Guest
IMAGE_124.jpg


Starts up, runs... Dies when I turn on the headlight. Sounds to me like its time for some contact cleaning and a coil relay mod.
 
Pardon my newb question, but why use a capacitor? Wouldn't it completely drain as soon as a load is applied, then charge, and discharge again? Whyuse a capacitor to do a batteries job?
 
Souske said:
Pardon my newb question, but why use a capacitor? Wouldn't it completely drain as soon as a load is applied, then charge, and discharge again? Whyuse a capacitor to do a batteries job?
Click to expand...

It is only doing half the job of the battery. It does not provide current to start the bike, the bike must be kickstarted, pushstarted or jumped. The capacitor DOES smooth the current from the GS charging system as a battery would.
 
Hi,

But these bikes don't have a magneto.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
posplayr said:
put two of those capacitors in parallel and see if that helps.

also your grounding sucks
Click to expand...

Its a 14,000uF capacitor, isn't that enough? Either way, I don't have two :o.

How is my grounding insufficient? The negative cable goes directly to the engine.
 
Adler said:
Its a 14,000uF capacitor, isn't that enough? Either way, I don't have two :o.

How is my grounding insufficient? The negative cable goes directly to the engine.
Click to expand...

The problem with the grounding is you're only grounding the engine, and everything else grounds to the frame, so you're relying on the engine to frame connection.

Run everything (or as much as possible) to the same ground connection and make sure it's clean and a good ground.

I have to run two ground points on mine because I moved the electrics, but I've only got something like a 0.2 to 0.5v loss when turning the key on which is what you want. 0v loss would be better of course...
 
pete said:
The problem with the grounding is you're only grounding the engine, and everything else grounds to the frame, so you're relying on the engine to frame connection.

Run everything (or as much as possible) to the same ground connection and make sure it's clean and a good ground.

I have to run two ground points on mine because I moved the electrics, but I've only got something like a 0.2 to 0.5v loss when turning the key on which is what you want. 0v loss would be better of course...
Click to expand...

Bear with me, I am young and stupid.
I understand that since our bikes (well, all vehicles) have no contact to actual earth, the ground wire tends to go to the largest conductive mass available. On our bikes this is either the frame or the engine (I would think the engine). If we wire together the frame and the engine then it becomes an even better ground.

You are saying that it is a bad idea to rely on this engine to frame connection and to choose one common ground. Should all GS owners move the negative battery terminal to a frame ground? Was this an engineering oversight?
 
You're harness is grounded to the frame. You should have a single point ground so it all returns to the R/R.
 
Finally got around to looking into overhauling my grounds and implementing a relay mod.

The first issue I have is that the negative battery cable is screwed into the engine under the airbox, I can't get anything in there to unscrew it. Any tips on how to get the negative off so I can relocate it?

Next, my R/R is grounded to the frame, should I move this ground to one of the R/R mount bolts or can I use the frame ground as my single ground?

Finally, I went to NAPA to pick up a relay for the relay mod and they didn't have the recommended relay. They did have a similar relay.
This relay...
0332209150.jpg
0332209150.jpg
100619155521-37989.jpg

Its Bosch part # 0 332 209 150
I noticed that the diagram is slightly different than the recommended relay. Will this work???
 
If you only have the one lead from the negative battery terminal, then it should be easy enough just to make up a second lead, and use that one to route from the battery to whereever you want the single ground point to be.

The essential point of the single ground is for everything electrical to have a direct connection to the battery negative, which you can do with multiple grounds and multiple leads, it's just messier...

As long as the relay has a normally open option so it only closes and provides connectivity when voltage is applied, it's all good.
 
pete said:
If you only have the one lead from the negative battery terminal, then it should be easy enough just to make up a second lead, and use that one to route from the battery to whereever you want the single ground point to be.

The essential point of the single ground is for everything electrical to have a direct connection to the battery negative, which you can do with multiple grounds and multiple leads, it's just messier...

As long as the relay has a normally open option so it only closes and provides connectivity when voltage is applied, it's all good.
Click to expand...

I thought about making my own new negative cable and just using that but then I have a loose wire, Id rather keep it clean.

Can you (or anyone) tell if the relay pictured is a normally open relay? I have very little experience reading electrical diagrams but it looks to me like the circuit is closed to 87a.
 
pete said:
If you only have the one lead from the negative battery terminal, then it should be easy enough just to make up a second lead, and use that one to route from the battery to whereever you want the single ground point to be.

The essential point of the single ground is for everything electrical to have a direct connection to the battery negative, which you can do with multiple grounds and multiple leads, it's just messier...

As long as the relay has a normally open option so it only closes and provides connectivity when voltage is applied, it's all good.
Click to expand...

Sorry pete, that would be so that everything has a unshared current path back to the R/R (-).
 
Well I managed to get the negative cable off the engine, so heres a small update.

The current state of the single ground.
P1040710.jpg

that is the R/R ground and the negative battery ground.
(Thats IS an R/R, right? I ask because it says "Regulator" on it and makes no mention of rectification)

Here are 2 stragglers who haven't found their way over to the ground point yet.
P1040711.jpg

This appears to be a ground point associated with the fuel sending unit. I am guessing this isn't too important?

P1040712.jpg

This looks like the harness ground. Unfortunately there is no way it will reach the single ground point so I may have to splice in some more wire to make it reach.
 
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