New owner 2006 ST1300 Crazy first electrical question

[prafersno]

Hello, I aquired a '06 for extremely cheap. It was a LD/Iron Butt Rally bike. So, it has a bunch of extra stuff 'wired in' to the harness. Lots of wiring I'm going to have to redo or remove
It cranks and runs on starting fluid but No dash lights, nothing on the dash. No indicator lights on right panel. All lights and signals work, brake lights work. AND the power windshield works.
I have only tested the fuses so far. going to move to relays but I don't think the dash would be dependent on relays.

I know it's early in the diagnosis, but I thought I would throw it out there and see if there are any dectectives that love a challenge.

Many more questions to come but I'm very happy to have a forum like this!

Thanks!
Greg

 

[motornut]

Yes, the relays are next. Does the fuel pump run momentarily when the ignition is turned on?

 

[dduelin]

I would first check the white 24 pin harness connector under the left cowling followed by the yellow buss above and behind the right hand headlight. Many ST1300 electrical faults are traced to corrosion here (look particularly the green wire ground circuits) or overloaded high resistance circuits leading to green wire terminals contained here. Bikes with additional electrical devices may overload the ground circuit and current seeks alternative low resistance paths to ground, bypassing fuel system devices or leading the ignition circuit directly to ground. Very common with ST1300s and here is one with wiring additions for rally use.

 

[prafersno]

I don't think so but I'll be checking that tomorrow morning! I definately couldn' hear anything but I'll put the test light on the fuel pump connector.

Yes, the relays are next. Does the fuel pump run momentarily when the ignition is turned on?

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Start with the two ground blocks that dduelin pointed you to. This is a known ground failure point of the ST1300 that manifests itself in a myriad of different symptoms that have confounded many people before these failure points became known. Whether this is really the source of your problem or not this is something that you are well advised to check anyway on an older ST1300 if for no other reason than to make sure that they are in good shape to preclude future strange electrical activity. If this is not the cause of your problem report back and we will be able to point you to the next most likely causes to investigate.

 

[gunsmoker]

My "engine stumbling" problem from September thru mid-November turned out to
NOT be a fuel pump,
NOT an EV (charcoal) canister,
but rather corrosion on the grounds for the ignition coils.
And during the year that I owned that bike, it was only caught in the rain maybe 3 times,
and stored indoors, never parked outside in the rain and never left out overnight.

 

[prafersno]

Sorry guys, not ghosting this thread. I happened across a (pic) One Owner 2005 w/65k, that I couldn't pass up. It's been well taken care of. It only seems to have the common Clutch Slave Cylinder issue, (clutch lever going soft when hot). Luckily, I ordered 2 of them in anticipation of the need for the 2 Iron butt bikes My Son and I originally purchased. It was weird to get a title that said "1" mile on it.

hopefully, I can tackle that next week, then get back to the electrical issue.

 

[prafersno]

Got my sons bike on the road and he took his first ride tonight. We did 10 miles around the local lake. Before we left, we pushed mine on to the lift so I could tear into it when we got back home.

 

[prafersno]

So, I decided, instead of trying to probe wires left and right, I would start by taking all the plastics off and remove any of the spaghetti that I was not going to keep. That ended up being every add on except the extra lights up front. I remove the CB/intercom system, satellite radio, various other doohickies cobbled in there.
BUT when I went to remove the right cover, my first clue was discovered...
Now, before I started, my floor was clean! I swept and blew everything to the garage door before I started to make sure I could keep track of all the fasteners. That was all packed in just behind the right fan, never looked that closely at the vent until it was on the lift.

 

[prafersno]

Well, the wiring was so bad that I separated the headlight cover from the dash to finish tracing and removing the rest of the wires. I didn't see it right away but after I got past the rest of the excess accessory wiring and the cigrette lighter/ power-port zip tied to the windshield motor frame, that's when I noticed it. Now, I'm kinda new to Hondas, but I think I found most of my problem (Pics)

 

[wizel]

Horrifying images!

holm from Germany

 

[V4 Rider]

Looks like mice or rats have been at work.

 

[motornut]

First step in troubleshooting is, it has to pass the visual inspection

 

[ST Gui]

Hate them meeces to pieces.

 

[prafersno]

Well, I got the missing wires replaced everything soldered shrink wrapped and taped up. I repaired my LCD with new polarizer film while I had the dash out and then I moved onto the no fuel problem. I was able to trace power all the way to the tank, so I knew it was the fuel pump.
Here’s what I found

 

[prafersno]

I was able to get all the crud loose with mostly a screwdriver, then a brass brush.

Then I rigged up a funnel/hose to the suction side of my leaf blower. So no fumes passing through the electric motor.
And sucked ‘most’ of the gas and debris out.

Then I filled it with hot soapy water, and went back in with the scrub brush and sloshed everything around, then siphoned that into a bucket. Repeated that one time and it got almost all of it and then I just use my shop vac to finish it off and luckily it didn’t ignite.

The upper tank is spotless, fortunately.

Of course I didn’t take any pictures of the tank after it was cleaned, but I was very happy with result from where I started.

 

[prafersno]

I don’t know how to post a video, but I turned the key on and turned off the kill switch. I heard the pump run for a couple seconds that made me smile. It literally cranked over maybe two revolutions and fired right up and idled like a brand new motorcycle!

Shut it off, checked everything over and went and got the mufflers and put them on. I started a back up and let it start to warm up. It did the high idle thing at first and then idled down after it warmed up, just like it should, but as soon as it warmed up, it started to sputter and an idle down to almost nothing, as soon as I would give it throttle, it would try to die it would only idle so I shut it off. I was so tired. It was New Year’s Eve and shut down for the night.

 

[prafersno]

Of course, I researched online for any possibilities and settled on the theory that the exhaust valves being out of adjustment and when I got hot, started to lose compression.
So, I went out to run it to temp again and see if it repeated.
When I went to put more fuel in it, I noticed my 5 gallon gas can was still pretty heavy after I had put fuel in the night before and thought, just maybe, I hadn’t put enough fuel in the tank. I went and got a gallon gas can filled that so I knew I had one whole gallon, and then added that by funnel to the lower gas tank since I still hadn’t put the upper tank on yet. And that was it when I’d use the big gas can to put gas in the lower tank it had sealed against the river transfer hose, and there wasn’t an venting to let a lot of fuel into the lower tank…
Huge Happy dance!

 

[SMSW]

I'm impressed. You sound like you don't need us. One thing that only comes up rarely in discussions here is the rubber hoses between the top tank and the lower tank, They, too, age like any other rubber hose, but if either were to split, the upper tank's contents would spill onto a hot engine. It is a good idea to check these for visual signs of cracking or other ageing. For a 20 year old bike, I'd probably change those hoses during my winter layup.

I want to know who put tomato soup in the lower tank.

Honda used wire with soy based insulation, and mice seem to love the stuff. Sorry you discovered this the hard way.

 

[ST Gui]

I don’t know how to post a video,

This site doesn't host video. You can post your videos at various sites including YouTube. Then post a link here. You'd want to ensure your links aren't private or we can't see them.

You may have noticed the YouTube videos appear on this site regularly. This is a function of just posting the URL to the video. It makes for handy viewing.