Electrical troubleshooting - FXR

[maggot]

Alright, so last night, went to get on the bike and head home, key in, all looking fine, I hit the starter and hear a pop, and all the lights on the bike go dead. Uh oh.
So I hop on and kick start, it goes, but the dash is going fucking nuts, showing all possible bits and then going off and then going normal and going generally nuts. I'm thinking uh oh. Head light is weak, indicators not flashing. So I bunged the seat off, checked the battery and connections that I could see, nothing obvious wrong.

So I needed to get home, so I limped her home, running fine apart from the electrics.
Today, I headed off to the shore to the mechanics, and was told they couldn't do anything for me, and the other shop I visited was shut. Shit.

So I started to make my way back home, on the motorway, and it seemed to right itself again, I had the dash, indicators, everything working fine. Until I slowed down. Then the old faults were back.
Got it home, and I've gone over the bike, writing everything down so I can repeat it here, so here goes...

-key in, the Neutral light slowly goes from dead to bright
-hitting the starter switch does nothing, blanks out the dash, occasionally get a single loud click from near the battery
-with it not running, hitting the indicator switch, blanks out the dash, no lights on
-not running, hit the brakes, dash disappears, no lights
-horn is loud and clear, oddly
-kicking it over, it runs, the dash occasionally switches to having EVERY possible thing displayed
-with it running, the indicators intermittently flash, with high beam, plus indicators, the indicators flash more slowly
-with it running, the horn is weak
-with it running and revving past 2.5k, the dash goes nuts, indicators won't flash, just turn on

I've gotta wait til the flatmate gets home to get my hands on a multimeter, when I do, what should I look for?

Other than that, any suggestions? I'm stumped. It's rideable, but I like having a dash and indicators..

Bearing in mind my electrical knowledge is fairly shocking. And everything was working fine before the aforementioned incident, yesterday.

[2Seat_Terror]

FWIW, my FXR just died one day. Ended up being dirty & loose connections, I think. But in the process I discovered a lot of loose & dirty connections etc. including around the relays, so I don't know which was the actual culprit. Take off the rear fairing and clean / tighten the connections down on the left side.

I didn't have your symptoms, but maybe that'll help. There's only so much to go wrong on an FXR!

[maggot]

Bit of an update.. Took it out this afternoon, kick starting it, choke on, warming it up, the dash goes nuts and indicators get stuck, but after a certain point it goes back to normal, everythings fine. Would this mean the charging system has a fault?

As soon as I kill the engine and attempt to the do the same stuff (indicators, brake lights etc) nothing works. And the starter switch is still doing nothing.

[Henk]

Check the fuse.
They do all that weird dash stuff with no battery in them and I'm pretty sure the same will be the case with a blown fuse.
Fuse is located by the starter relay from memory and if you are lucky there will still be a spare parked next to it.

[maggot]

Checked and swapped the fuse, no difference. Kept trying the starter motor. Keep getting a loud click near the regrec/starter relay. What could this mean?

[Henk]

The click means that the solenoid is at least firing.
Try shorting out the big fat cables on top of the solenoid with a pair of pliers of something, there will be sparks. If the starter motor turns over your solenoid is poked, if it doesn't either your starter motor or battery are fried.

[maggot]

The click means that the solenoid is at least firing.
Try shorting out the big fat cables on top of the solenoid with a pair of pliers of something, there will be sparks. If the starter motor turns over your solenoid is poked, if it doesn't either your starter motor or battery are fried.

Alright, just to clarify, what one is the solenoid? Don't wanna go sparking the wrong thing and doing even more damage.

[Henk]

It's the thing with the two big cables held onto it with a couple of nuts. Pretty sure the fuses live in the same place.
You want to make a connection between the two big cables somehow. If you try and bridge it with a piece of wire wear gloves, the wire may glow red hot it it's too thin.

[kiwi dude]

hi dude the easy way to find the fault is to look for it when the fault is there.get your selt a test light {super cheap $10}.put the earth of the test light on the neg battery terminal probe the positive terminal & hit the start button .check to see if the light goes out.if not follow the pos wire to the next connection point.it sounds like e poor connection

[maggot]

Got to my dad's place and some tools and such today, finally got the chance to check out the bits and bobs. Tried shorting the solenoid, no joy. Sparked the battery, no spark. So we kinda figured it'd be the battery. Dad hooked his van up to the bike with jumper leads and we hit the starter and away it went!
So time to get a new battery methinks!