Going to write up my full dilemma here! Bare with me.

1993 Dyna bought rebuilt from local shop, had 0 miles on rebuild. Over a year in, garage kept and only 600 local miles put on bike I'm having serious start issues.

initially, 2 months ago or so, turn the key, normal bike processes all go, hit the starter button and loud POP at the key area/ignition (under right side of seat. Bike went completely dark. Turn key on and off, nothing.

took seat off pulled the key ignition off and took it apart to find white wire blew itself off and broke solder right off. No problem, soldered it back and re installed. Bike turned right on, fired right up.

took bike out 2 days later, bike fired right up, drove it to gym. Parked for 2 hours. Came out and turned bike on, hit the ignition and a loud POP/click again.. said sht, must have blown the ignition.

But this time I was stranded. Had to leave bike there over night, came back next day with pickup truck.

When I got there I figured I'd turn the key one more time just to see what would happen.... IT TURNS ON... try to start it and it clicks it dark again... kick the kick stand down, turn the key... turns on, hit ignition, FIRES UP.

so at this point I'm dumbfounded... Drive it for an hour. Park it and let it sit to eat lunch, turn key and hit ignition, goes full dark and can't get it to light up at all.

Now it hasn't started since. Every time I turn the key, it's dark, only way I can get it to light up (got it to light up 3 times in past month) is by tugging on wire harness under seat or at the neck., but when I hit the ignition it clicks and goes full dark and I'm unable to move wires to get it to wake up...

need some input! I've been told to pull the full wire harness from within the frame as there might be a bare wire that's shorting the bike.. but I'm a bit timid to do that as it seems like a super pain to route the wires through the frame of this bike with how small the entry hole is at neck.

anything will help! Input on if you've faced similar problems, or even how to check those wires. I've done voltage tests at the fuses and relays, all looks pretty good down low.

 

Instead of soldering the wire back on, you should have looked further into what caused it. Do you have a Factory Service Manual? If not, GET ONE! Ignition switch turns on everything. The FSM gives you the colors of the wire circuits. Gonna have to go through every single one of them. First use your multi-meter set on ohms for checking continuity. Remove wires to ignition switch and check it with the meter. Go from the switch outwards. Might be a little easier to unplug all circuits and plug then in 1 at a time . . . till you find the culprit. Put 89,000 on my 96 FXDWG and now 95,000 on my 07 FXDB and never anything like that. Yanking on harnesses - where you yank might tell you where to go first.

 

It is probably the ignition switch.

 

i had gone through and checked when I believed it was dead and that's what lead me to the ignition. So after I soldered it back on, and it popped again, I just figured buy a new ignition and replace. Which I did. So it's got a new ignition on it... when it pops I'll have to check continuity quick... because somehow it passes and then when I hit starter it blows it.

when I tug the harness it's something inside the frame.. not sure how anything would get compromised there..

to check continuity properly for my issue, will i have to start from handle bars down to fuse/harness exit area??