No power to instument cluster

[painter.724]

Greetings, I rode my bike the other day r60/6 and all was fine. Yesterday when I went to take it for a spin I turned the key on and nothing. Today I tried again and nothing. With the key on I hit the kill switch and heard a click fron the head light and lights came on and bike fired right up. After it ran for a few minutes I shut it down and now there is nothing again. I checked the ground and battery voltage. Both were good I took the kill switch apart and cleaned it and it seems fine. when I turn the key on and check at the switch, I cannot find any power. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Dave

[Duane Ausherman]

Did you check for a good connection at both battery terminals? That is first with that symptom. I don't mean tight, I mean an electrical connection.

[painter.724]

Yes , I took off the terminals and cleaned and still no power

[Duane Ausherman]

Did you do a load test on the battery? Then run a load test at the far ends of those battery cables. A quick test is to check the first couple of inches on the battery cable for being slightly thicker and less flexible.

Using a volt meter can fool one easily. The voltage will show ok if you had only a hair thin wire, but it wouldn't pass much current.

Your find of it working intermittently is a strong indicator of a poor connection that works from time to time only.

Since your battery was able to turn the starter enough to start the bike, we know that it is able to still store energy. How does one get it to the proper place where it is needed?

When you replaced the cable terminals onto the battery posts, I hope that you smeared on some NO-OX, or other grease.

Did you read my page on the starter circuits? http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/starter/

[painter.724]

Thanks Duane I will do a load test as suggested. If the cables are weak, would it not still allow enough voltage to dimmly light the instrument lights?

[Ken in Oklahoma]

If the cables are weak, would it not still allow enough voltage to dimmly light the instrument lights?

The cable itself won't be "weak". However the electrical connection between the cable inner wiring and the crimped on lugs can give a connection to the battery which will pass a little current, but which will fail when too much current would be demanded.

You can eliminate the negative ground cable by taking a car jumper cable, putting the black clip onto the M/C battery terminal, and then putting the other black clip onto a good M/C grounding point, such as the engine. The cable will take over the job of the negative cable presently connected to the battery.

You could eliminate the positive battery cable similarly, except that while one of the positive ends is connected to the battery, the other positive connection is under the top engine cover. To get to that point you will need to pull off the top cover, a somewhat tedious but otherwise easy job.

Do you have a digital multimeter? They are cheap, especially from Harbor Freight (sometimes even free with the right coupon). If you're going to effectively trouble shoot the motorcycle you will need to know exactly how many volts are where.

You also need a digital multimeter because if the problem doesn't get solved right away we're going to be asking you questions as to what the meter says when connected to various parts of the electrical harness. And we would be very interesting if a voltage was OK, but then dropped to near zero when you did something such as press the start button, turn on a light, etc.


Ken

[painter.724]

I believe I found the problem . Follow the pos cable, I pulled the front cover. I checked all the conectors and found one that was loose. With the key on I jiggeled it and bingo. Cleaned and put back together and so far so good
Thanks for the input

[Duane Ausherman]

I hope that you have found it. At least we were suggesting a failure along the line that you found. I was worried that we didn't have enough info and could send you in the wrong direction. We could have you wasting a lot of time.

[ME 109]

We could have you wasting a lot of time.

Don't give up Duane, I haven't offered any suggestions yet.

[painter.724]

Duane, even if I were sent in the wrong direction ,that would be a good thing. It would just lead to a better understanding of the bike. Thanks Again