sometimes when i turn the key, i get nothing. traced problem to the ignition switch connector. it gets hot when the electrics are on. any small wiggle to the connector will turn off all electrics. there is probably a short somewhere but i dont know if its the switch or the harness somewhere. i dont think the connector itself is shorting.anyone have this problem before? where should i start to check from here? thanks for any help.
You don't say if you have TLS or TLR, but both bikes have problems with under-sized wire gauges especially in headlight circuits and in the TLS this means the wires in & out of the front fusebox. They all get hot over time, dry out the insulation with heat and eventually start causing shorts. You can buy a new nose harness but the same thing will keep happening. There are a few different electrical mods posted here that will work wonders. But its a pretty major project any way you do it. Like all electric repairs, begin at the power supply. The stock regulator/ rectifier is a hot-running shunt type; you can replace it with a FH012 on Ebay for under $50USD and at the same time increase the size of power wires to your harness, add new fuse block & relays to independently power the lights, coils etc. The more power-hungry items you remove from the main harness supply the easier life it will have.
When I tapped into the ignition switch circuit for adding my main power-on relay, I found that the wires to the switch itself were adequate. But the lighting circuits are terrible- Suzuki used 20-22 ga. wire where a minimum of 18 ga. would be required for the wattage. Here's a great place to start:
You better grab this by the horns, because you WILL find yourself by the side of the road if you don't...sorry to bear bad news! Part of the charm of our beloved L-twins :coocoo
thanks for the input. its a 99 tl1000r. i was hoping for a simple fix but according to you, there is no simple solution to poor development on suzukis part.
it'll be a great winter project...if you live somewhere where there's a long winter :coocoo
Also a good time to do HIDs or projectors if you're of a mind...but the stock H4's can be replaced with better OEM type bulbs and the rewired harnesses do allow higher voltage/power to get through, so even stock will brighten up noticeably.
You're lucky you have the TLR- the TLS also suffers from losing the front plug in the rain, another bone-headed irritation due to questionable design :confused
im in florida. winter lasts about 3 minutes down here. i just took out my lazer thermometer and tested the connector while power was on to see which wires are heating up, i found the orange wire from the ignition switch getting really hot, but the red wire is the one that is starting to get charred black from heat. i think this means my short is somewhere in the front harness.i will keep digging deeper.
I ended up scanning mine, and printing it out on 11" x 17" large format printer to keep from going blind due to lots of parallel lines..
I assure you that you have undersized + and - wires in the whole front headlight assy. Look at my pics to see the old/new harness. The good news is that high-temp and high-quality new lamp sockets can be gotten at AutoZone etc. for under $15. Replace the blk/wt ground wire with 14 or 16 ga. master bus ground wire, and same with headlight/ turn signal power wires. No more flickering or pulsing with beat of turn signals :coocoo
here's a great source for fuses, terminals, relays etc. They stock it all and ship same day typically:
Not sure where your front fuse box is located but you'll need to replace it since it's hard-wired with too-small wires. Once you're in there that deep you have to decide if you want to do the 'headlight cut while starting' mod via relay, as the wire you need to tap into is in the front harness. Plan ahead too, like add sufficient spare fuse channels for GPS, add'l lights etc. Figure on running a main power-on relay located in tail somewhere. More details in schematic in my pics.
Or you could try taking the connectors apart. cleaning them real good and tightening the male/female connectors and putting it back together with some dielectric grease. Do the same for the connectors under the left ram air cover. No use starting out trying to kill a fly with a sledge hammer. :laugh
Uh oh! tryin' to give him a false sense of security, eh? LOL
Only a matter of time till you'll need that sledge...but hey, you'll get good and fast at removing the fairings after the 5th or 6th time you'll gone in and tried to do this piece meal! Jeez, when I think of the time spent removing and replacing those same 18 screws over & over...uke
It's your time after all...good luck whatever you choose!
ok. heres where i sit now. i have disconnected the ign switch connector. i have put in 2 jumper leads to connect the switch to the harness on the red wire(power in) and the orange wire(power out of the switch). this eliminates all other curcuits associated with this switch. the wires are still getting hot. the red wire coming from the harness side is way hotter than on the switch side. this leads me to beleive the problem is in the main harness somewhere. what would make that wire get so hot. it only puts out batt voltage. ive checked that many time its only 12 volts or so but it gets too hot. i think maybe something else may have lost a ground so its trying to ground through this circuit. but what and where? i know you cant tell me but maybe you have an idea of what may be happening. thanks for all your help so far.
i will most likely be beefing up the wires on this unit anyway but im not going in blind. i want to verify this problem before i just start replacing stuff for the fun of it.
.... the red wire coming from the harness side is way hotter than on the switch side. this leads me to beleive the problem is in the main harness somewhere. what would make that wire get so hot.....
That wire comes from the relay connector socket - infamous bad connection point.
Inspect the connector and the relay itself - if connection looks suspect follow TLDV8 mod by cutting the red wire out of the connector plug, then re-connecting it via a 30A fuse holder to the high current input terminal on the relay (the one that has the main power lead from the battery)
To reduce the current through that line to the fuse-panel, follow this wiring improvement for the headlights - multiple benefits associated with that.
(I think 97TLSurS4 maybe intended this one rather than the one linked in post 2)
The red wire's source is coming from the regulator/rectifier output into the harness. In the ignition switch it contacts the orange wire, which then runs right to the nose harness and powers the signal, headlight, ignition, fuel pump relay fuse box! It is my rotten experience so far that showed the wires into and out of that fuse box with the most cracked insulation were the ones in the primary headlight circuit. The insulation cracks off, wires touch,and poof the 30A main fuse in the starter relay housing blows, leaving you stranded at your nympho girlfriend's house :devious
So I began planning how to replace the fuse box, but separately power the headlight harness via a couple relays. It was the perfect time to improve charging and grounding (called the + mod, - mod). You may or may not want to power the coils with their own relay. I decided to because the more power-using circuits you run outside of the main harness the better! But with regards to the headlight and turn signal circuit, you want to run beefier gauge wires for both power and ground, and run the ground back to the battery. Use no less than 18 ga. wire for each or better yet 16 ga. stranded copper. If wires are hotter on one side or the other of the harness connector it just tells me you have some corrosion in there, but the actual current draw is caused by the headlights themselves. For a test unplug them at their sockets, and see if the wires still get hot. FYI D'Ecosse has some excellent write ups on these mods.
Clarification - it originates from the connector for the starter relay - the wires from the output of the R/R splice into that wire in inimitable Suzuki fashion.
One of the SV Gen 1 guys recently found that splice was corroded and crumbling.
Use a pin or similar to puncture just through the insulation of the red wire at the relay connector and measure the voltage there - if it stands up, then problem is down at the splice. If it's bad, then it's the connector.
the ign switch connector is charred a little due to excessive heat. it gets hot quickly even with the headlights off( i removed the fuses), and the bike not running. i checcked the relay connector and found a problem. there is none. it has been removed and the 4 wires were permanently soldered to the relay. it looks like they tried to do the TLDV8 mod. there is a 30a fused wire going from the red wire to the high current input terminal on the relay. but the red wire was not disconnected. this may be causing a problem. i should cut the red wire from the relay right?
You may have shorting out in the front connector plugs - this is also common
Check the white (especially) & yellow plugs and look for tracking between the terminal pins. If you still have wires get hot with the headlight fuses removed, your problem is surely there.
ok. so ive found, untaped and unplugged yellow and white connectors in front harness. found no tracking between terminals but the yellow connector had a dark spot at the black/white wire terminal. i did notice that the grey wire coming from the ign switch is getting warm too. but it only supplies power to the speedo lights. maybe there is a short in this circuit. i dont know. ill keep digging.
Gray wire also traces into the brake light circuit which connects to Orange/Green in rt. control harness, goes back to nose harness and ties to Dark Green which went into your former fuse box. I think you need to take out the nose harness and unwrap it to find your problem spots, identify the basic circuit blocks, compare to stock wiring schematic, especially since somebody's been in there already- God knows what all has been done. But you're on the right track! Lay in a supply of 14-16 ga. wire!:devious
ok. so now i have found that they have bypassed the thermo switch for the fans. there is a switch on the handlebars for the fans to come on now. i have found that if fans are off and headlight are off, the wires dont get hot at all.
with the fans on and the headlights off, the circuit only gets moderately hot, only a little hotter than most other wires while bike is running. i think this means i should only have to remove the headlights from this circuit to keep it from overheating the wires.......maybe. ill keep digging just to verify
while still looking at ign switch connector, fan on, headlights off, bike running, the red wire terminal and orange wire terminal are both ok. now jjust the grey wire terminal is heating up now. guess that front harness is coming out.
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