QuestionQUESTION: 1985 Honda nighthawk 650- I started my bike and the head light was not lit. I did some testing. While I was testing I had the key on bike not running, I hooked up a charger to the battery so it would not run down while I was testing the lights. Then I had no power coming from the fuse panel at all.
I thought it might be the ignition switch, so I bypassed and went to the back of the fuse panel. On the wiring digram it shows the red/black wire supplying power to the fuse panel, but when I looked at the back I saw that wire with a black wire, coming from the ignition switch plugged into the back of the fuse panel. but I also saw another set of wires just above that that looked the same but came up form under the gas tank, above that there is a black wire with a red stripe along with a black wire. 3 sets of wires on the supply side.
I tried putting power directly to the wire coming from the ignition switch, (I could not get it unplugged so I took the wire from my tester and shoved it in to the back of the plug.) But still no power, so I took a ground wire and did the same hook up the the black wire and still no power.
Please help if you can straighten me out.
ANSWER: Perhaps you connected the charger up the wrong way around or shorted it to the frame. It sounds like your main fuse is blown, it is normally located somewhere close to the battery. Good luck, Jan
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QUESTION: The main fuse is OK. The last thing I tried is to do is go directly from the battery (pos from the bat and neg from the starter bolt ground) to the back (the supply) of the fuse panel. Red/black wire pos and black wire neg.
ANSWER: Instead of force feeding voltages into circuits, you're better off measuring resistance in the wires, switches and also measure voltages you're getting. So measure directly across the battery, you should get 12 V. Then go on from there, and see where the voltage is dropped. if the voltage drops check that the resistance is high in that section of the circuit. Good luck, Jan
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QUESTION: OK thank you.
Would leaving the key on when the bike is not running or charging it with the key on cause damage to the system?
Is it possible to blow out the fuse panel?
AnswerHouses have fuse panels. A bike just has fuses on some parts of the circuitry. If you try to charge the battery with the key on, it is possible you did damage to the regulator or the alternator. It is very possible a diode is blown which could give a dead short. You will have to disconnect sections of the circuit and check when the voltage is dropped when reconnecting things. When you started testing, you did test the headlight bulb first, right? Good luck, Jan
