Ok hopefully i can get some help here! I got a 99 electraglide std with TC-88, rineharts, screaming eagle ignition. The starter push button would intermittently start the bike. Now its almost never. The things that have been replaced are; battery, starter relay, starter, handlebar starter switch, 40A circuit breaker/fuse. Ive ran the wires and the voltage drop all the way from my battery, through my ignition switch, fuse block, start relay, and finally to the green "trigger" wire on my starter. With battery charged at 12 volts and with starter button engaged my voltage is only 7.4 volts at the trigger wire. The voltage drop is 10.2 going into ignition switch, 9.4 coming out of ign sw, 8.4 at fuse block, 8.2 at st relay, and finally down to 7.4 at trigger wire. All with st button pushed. I have a push button on my st solenoid now so im not stranded but i want to fix the problem. You can feel the push button at the solenoid try to engage but wont unless i run 12 v straight off my battery to the trigger wire. Ive cleaned out all my electrical plugs on the whole bike with contact cleaner. Please help!!

 

by swapping all those parts, the connections should now be clean and tight- the voltage drop is out of line ( which i think you know).

---and the battery is good when load tested ?

all I can think is that the contacts in the ignition switch are bad- adding lighting up front ( high wattage bulbs) on that bike will put the extra load on the switch contacts which will pat/burn up/carbon up.

can you run a jumper from the battery + to the wiring for the starter switch and test voltage drop again ?

that would bypass the ign. switch- but leave everything else intact- from the starter switch on the bars through to the solenoid


pretty good trouble shooting on your part


Mike

 

You might have a faulty wire, try replacing the wires with test leads,one by one.
You have replaced everything else, check the wires themselves, and make sure the grounds are good.

 

Yes batt load tests good and turns over every time by the button on the solenoid. It just the trigger wire doesnt have enough volts to operate the solenoid. And I did run test leads and checked for bad connections, bad grounds, and chafing, shorts etc. I ran test lead at every junction point even the power side of the ign switch and it never operated the solenoid until I put the test lead from the + terminal on the battery.

 

you may have internal corrosion in the wiring then---

back to the voltage drop problem- it could be another circuit such as lighting dragging the voltage down- can you pull fuses for the other circuits and leave the ign. circuit energised?
and check to see if the 7.2 reads higher


are there any solder joints in your wiring?
soldered joints on bikes break down due to vibration, the copper strands will break right where the solder tinning starts


Mike

 

if everything you say is correct, I would check all the crimp ends on the wires for corrosion....actually for me I would pull new wires and just abandon the old ones....before hiding the wires I would hook them all up and check the voltage drops...aka. run jumpers...is it possible that the bike was built with under gauge wires???

 

With trigger wire disconnected what resistance should I get from trigger wire connector on solenoid to ground on the engine?? I get 12.5 v with trigger wire disconnected from solenoid and 7.4 as soon as I hook it up. I wonder if my solenoid coil is shorted to grd

 

oh crap- voltage drop is checked thru the circuit with the load disconnected- you've been testing it incorrectly

you would have wanted to check the circuit, from the battery thru the circuit testing TO each point, with the other part(s) of the circuit disconnected

ok, rebuild the solenoid, the disc is probably carboned up and you have NO remaining electrical issues


mike

 

if that were true then why when he runs a jumper from the battery to the trigger connnection on the starter does it start strong...and if I understand correctly what he said about testing does he get increased voltage drop along the circuit...maybe I am mis-reading what he wrote....

 

as he tests he is seeing the resistance of the solenoid,


each test point is closer to that resistance, so more "voltage drop"




the testing was done incorrectly





mike