Dr Hess,
I wondered about the voltage on the coil neg side too. It's around ten. Seemed high to me, so I took the coil to the shop and had it tested. Coil is good.

 

I noticed yesterday, that the headlight case was really really hot after the key had been on for a few minutes. I'm guessing there's a short in there too. When this problem started, the headlight bulb exploded. But how would a short in the headlight assembly effect the ignition system? Maybe it's shorting or grounding everything? Any thoughts?

 

Also...Dr Hess,
Yes, the cops are thick. I live one sub-division closer to I-45 from The Landing. Plus, they've installed red light cameras at 45 & 518. I avoid going that way. Take 96 instead. And how does someone go from Beautiful Galveston to Arkansas? That's gotta be hard. Too many trees up that way for me. I don't trust them. Not since TS Rita put one through my roof when we lived north of Humble. Cheers.

 

I remember that subdivision. I used to run through it with my dog, Bruzer, sometimes. I think I know some Lotus people there too.

The negative side of the coil will read high (10-12, whatever) when the "points" or in our cases, the ignition module, is open or not shorted to ground. Shorting the negative side to ground charges the coil. Opening the circuit collapses the magnetic field in the coil, which induces a large voltage in the secondary. So, yeah, 10V on the negative side is about normal for an electronic ignition system or even a points system with the points open.

You should certainly find what's getting hot inside the headlight area before you do anything else.

Compared to League City, Arkansas is Heaven. Half the people here are from California. The other half are from Texas. I did 6 years in Galveston. That's enough.

 

So... why did the fuses not blow and protect the electrical system and accessories?

 

'cause there ain't no fuses.

 

Ah, 1990. Missed that. So why did the 30A circuit breaker not trip?

 

Well, if you get down to it, the fuses/breakers protect the supply side of a circuit, not the demand side. So, if a headlight socket shorts to ground, theoretically, the breaker should open, protecting the regulator and stator (and battery, wires, etc.) But if the regulator blows and dumps too much voltage on the circuit, then it can fry whatever is down stream. Also, the regulator hooks into the entire circuit on the bike side of the 30 amp breaker, so nothing in the regulator, short of a ground in the positive wire from the regulator, would trip the 30 amp breaker.

I had a regulator do that to me once on the way back from Sturgis. My volt meter was way up, so I put on the high beams and the spot lights to draw down the voltage and limped in to St. Joe.

 

I get it now, and yes, all that makes perfect sense. I guess the moral of the story should be that if you have stuff you'd like to keep in a situation like this you should have inline fuses on all the power connections...