Electrical expertise needed!

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May 11, 2014 | 08:18 AM

Sam316

Thread Starter

Stage I

Joined: May 2014

Posts: 1

Likes: 0

From: Rochester NY

Electrical expertise needed!

Hi, sorry if this has been answered on here before, but I'm new to the site. I just got my first sportster. 1998 883. Since i got it, every now and again you would have to turn the key on and off a few times to get it to power up. Well, One morning I washed it, it worked fine after that. I took it out for a few hours and let it sit for like 3 hours. Went to ride it again, seemed fine, the odometer was lit up,etc. I switched it to ign and nothing. I cant say for sure, but i thought i heard a pop under the seat. Long story long, The odometer light comes on, but the LED digits dont, when you put it over to ignition, even that goes off. So, i bypassed the switch thinking that might be the issue. nothing, did the same thing bypassed. I checked the fuses, all good, I charged the battery 100%, nothing. I cleaned every connection I could reach, unplugged everything and cleaned, nothing. At this point Im lost. I put the thing back together and I look up and the odometer is working! I put it to ignition again and nothing. Now its all effed up again. What a waste of good days in this crap hole of New York. Any help would be great. I dont want to start replacing things like the relay, ignition, ect, because I'm not sure it would be behaving this way if it were anything permanently busted. Any help would be great. Thanks man

May 11, 2014 | 11:24 AM

Dan89FLSTC

Seasoned HDF Member

Joined: May 2008

Posts: 21,173

Likes: 12,740

From: South Carolina

The first thing you must do is remove the battery, and have it load tested. An auto parts store will do this for free.

You must eliminate the battery as a potential problem before you can start troubleshooting the rest of the system.