73 FLH

Bike wouldn't start so while looking around for the issue I saw that the starter relay had burn holes in it. Bought a horn relay from the auto parts store and when I went to wire it in, noticed that the original relay wasn't wired per the factory diagram. What was on it was terminal 1 went to the solenoid, 2 to the battery, and 3 to the start button. So 1 and 2 were reversed. I wired the horn relay with "H" to the solenoid, "B" for the battery, and "S" to the start button. The bike starts fine but the real fun is that I noticed it will start when the ignition switch is off. Also, when I turn the ignition switch on, the lights won't come on.

So I got to looking how the kill switch was wired and noticed the wires were switched there also. I soldered the two white wires to the center pole and the gray one to one side thinking that would fix the ignition off/start problem. Didn't help.

So I know I've got power to the start switch when I shouldn't. I just can't figure out what the hell is causing it. I've looked at and cleaned the ignition switch and everything appears to be wired correctly.

any help with this?


carl

 

ignition switch is wired backwards also.
someone completely miswired the bike without a manual and just kept swapping wires 'till it ran.
get a schematic and start from scratch at the battery.

 

Yup. I found that out the day after I posted this. There are a ton of miswires in it and one of them causes the starter button to be hot whether the ignition is on or not.

I'm slowly working through the wiring diagram. Should have it sorted out and back on the road soon. Had to stop today and go from being an electrician to machinist. One of the screws holding the high/low beam switch was stripped out and I had to install a couple of helicoils. The screw was rattling around in the housing!


carl