So my starter acted up yesterday. It's kind of stuttering and not fully starting the bike and eventually pops the circuit breaker. I drilled a hole in the solenoid cap and it starts fine when I depress the solenoid. I put a new relay on it that I got from autozone, and it only dims the lights when I hit the start switch. I'm going to pull the switch housing apart after work today and jump the wires and see if the switch is the problem, is there anything else I should check?

 

Check the current and voltage drops... from description it sounds like the starter is working but for some reason is drawing too much power.

 

Problem solved, ended up being some wiring in the handlebars that had shorted.