k75 sat 10 years part 2

[acehosedme]

This forum has been great help for me to get this bike working! My thanks to everyone who made suggestions.
Since getting the bike runnning most of the time the head light stays on after turning off the key and sometimes the turnsignal says on too. At first the only way to get the light off or the turn signals to stop was to disconnect the positive side of the battery.
every so often the light would go off after a few seconds and soemtimes all it takes is to turn the key back to on and then off again and then the light s go off. This bike has been running about 2 weeks. Yesterday afternoon the turn signals stopped working but the emergency flashers do work. The horn stopped as well. Also, there was a noise like another small motor whirling away that only stopped after removing the battery cable . I noticed that with the key on or removed completely if i tried to re-attach the cable the started would turn over and not stop until removing the battery cable.
Does this sound like relays? Are the relays either going belly up or already gone, what makes them go bad? :confused:

[KBasa]

Check the fan to see if it will rotate freely. When the fans croak, they generally take out the turn signals and horn.

Eilenberger may be able to help you with diagnosing the headlight/turnsignal issue.

dave

[acehosedme]

Dave,
Thaks for the reply. I finally got to checking the fan a few minutes ago. It rotates freely. No noises either. I put in an old battery I had charged for 3 hours and now the starter does not turn over as soon as I connect the battery cable. The lights go off when I turn off the key now. What should I be looking for to ensure this stuck starter problem does not happen again?
090
090703 17:46

[deilenberger]

Originally posted by acehosedme
Dave,
Thaks for the reply. I finally got to checking the fan a few minutes ago. It rotates freely. No noises either. I put in an old battery I had charged for 3 hours and now the starter does not turn over as soon as I connect the battery cable. The lights go off when I turn off the key now. What should I be looking for to ensure this stuck starter problem does not happen again?
090
090703 17:46

Well - since Dave asked me to comment..

Classic symptoms of:

1. Low battery - and stuck starting relay. Fix is a good battery and hoping the starter relay doesn't do it again (most are OK if they disconnect finally)

2. Dirty starter. The starter is part of a rather complex circuit that can cause all KINDS of odd symptoms if the insides get dirty enough. Cure is pretty simple - remove it, disassemble it, clean out all the carbon from the brushes, reassemble and reinstall.

Once you do it - it only takes about an hour on a K75 (not much to remove to get to it - mostly the FI computer and box and the battery.

There are more details on this on the IBMWR website under the K-tech pages (http://www.ibmwr.org)

HTH,

[CustomSarge]

I've had this happen on at least 4 different bikes, all due to the same reason: not enough power (volts X amps) to make the relay close crisp once the starter is connected. Apperantly the contacts bounce at the instant the starter draws power and the contacts spot weld together. It's cheesed me enough to begin construction, in small quantities, of a solid state relay. A fellow electronics designer worked with me on it, I have a functional prototype on my desk now. On a '85 K100 engine drawing 65 amps cranking, I get less than 1/10 volt drop across the switch. Best part: unless something destroys the power transistor block, it is incapable of sticking. We're going to build 10 or so and do field testing into next season then decide on whether / how to market them.