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Old July 19th, 2020, 06:48 PM   #1
toquesofhazard
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2k8 ‘eating’ diodes; wont start!

Hi all,

If someone could give me some insights into what is happening with my bike I would appreciate it. Started awhile back where the bike wouldn’t start without a few tries, I would hear a high pitched whine of the starter relay, but after a few tries it would start...no problem right? Went on a long trip and stopped for a break, bike would not start at all! Towed back home and started troubleshooting. Long story short, it ended up being the diode was blown on the starter circuit, replaced, all good, starts, runs and bike was happy for a season. Then the same diode started to blow once a month, then once a week. I took it to a shop, tech told me the battery was shot, replaced that, he also replaced the diode again. Broke down again, took it back to the shop, guy spliced a larger diode in series (I know eh?) I was pissed but it ran, so I moved on. About a month after that it quit again! Beefy spliced diode is ok, original diode is ok. Talked to a buddy and said it might be the relay or starter solenoid, replaced both. No joy! I can turn the starter by bridging the starter solenoid, so it isn’t the starter, relay, solenoid, or fuses (those are occasionally blowing as well. There is likely I short somewhere but I have no clue. Anyone have any ideas? I’m about to give up! Cheers T
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Old July 20th, 2020, 11:38 PM   #2
DannoXYZ
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Hi, and welcome to Ninjette!

Which diode are you talking about exactly? There's about 10 of them on bike. There's two sets of 3 that deals with positive side of starter circuit and 3 that deals with ground side of starter circuit.

On both sides of circuit, diodes deal with low-level amounts of power, just enough to trigger relay, ~ 0.1amps or less. If you're frying diodes, that's just symptoms of problem. You want to fix the problem (cause), not the symptoms (effect). Let me make an analogy to illustrate difference:

Let's say your neighbor comes to you asking for help with water on his kitchen floor. Every day he gets up and there's water! So he mops it up and next morning, more water! He goes out and buys bigger towels and bigger mops and starts mopping earlier and earlier so when his wife wakes up, there's no water. But it gets worse and worse, now he's gotta start mopping with mattress-sized sponges at midnight and the water keeps on coming back and he's thinking about drilling holes in kitchen floor to drain water so he can get some sleep. This is fixing symptoms and effects right? You tell him to fix real problem that's causing his headaches, which is.... fix damn leaky water-pipes under sink!!!

Same thing with your bike, replacing diodes and batteries is just like neighbor going to extremes to mop up water. The real problem and cause of your issues is a wiring short!. What short-circuits cause is current to flow away from where you want it. Instead of flowing to starter-relay to turn it on to turn on starter-solenoid, that power is flowing to ground somewhere unauthorized. That direct connection to ground allows A LOT of current to flow because there's very little resistance. So.. all that extra power is frying your diodes, not activating your starter and draining your battery.

There's many ways to troubleshoot to find shorts. It all involves using factory manual's wiring-diagram, getting instruments like multimeters, test-lights, and writing lots of documentation & spreadsheets. This allows you to do process-of-elimination analysis to determine what parts of circuit is good and which parts are not behaving properly, therefore, probably where short is located. Think of circuits as water-pipes, it flows from a beginning to an end. Somewhere, you've got a leak that's draining your flow and it's not making it to your starter-solenoid.


BTW - is your wiring-harness 100% bone-stock OEM condition? Any mods at all? To charge phone? Power GPS? Issues like yours is typically introduced when modifying harness away from 100% bone-stock OEM condition. Often, fastest and easiest solution is to restore your harness back to 100% bone-stock OEM condition.
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Old July 22nd, 2020, 01:05 PM   #3
toquesofhazard
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Hey there, thank you very much for taking the time to reply! I actually figured out the issue!

While checking continuity between the ignition fuse and the negative batt terminal when starting, I noticed that when I stuck the meter probe into the back of the fuse connector, the thing started right up! I pushed in all the connectors on the back of the fuse panel and viola! After 2 years of messing around, the thing runs like a top!

Word to the wise...always disconnect/reconnect and push those connectors in tightly!

Thank you very much!

T
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Old July 22nd, 2020, 02:29 PM   #4
Alex
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Nice work!
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Old July 22nd, 2020, 04:03 PM   #5
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Good job!

Although I'm not sure how loose connectors can cause an increase in current-flow to blow fuses and diodes. Let's keep an eye on it...
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