Weird Electrical Problem

[mxracer2000]

I just finished replacing the one piece plastic license plate
holder/rear brake light on my 1993 XR250L. While replacing it was
necessary to dissconnect the rear brake light electrical
connections (3). After putting everything back together I cant get any power when I turn my key to acc. or to on. I replaced the battery a week ago so I know its good. I also checked the fuses by the battery and they all seem fine. What would cause this to happen and what can I do to fix it? The 3 connections at the rear light are all good.

 

[Durt Cycler]

The rear light wires shouldn't be the problem at all. Possibly you disconnected a different wire accidently maybe or your sparkplug is fouled? The best way is to just go to work with multimeter and check all the connnections.

 

[mxracer2000]

Thanks for responding. The thing that makes this odd is that the bike will still kickstart and run fine. The lights all seem to dim however when the rpms drop, almost like what you would see with a dead or dying battery. I just replaced and retested the battery so I know its good. When I turn the key to acc. or on I used to get the dash lights, head and tail lights come on. Now nothing comes on until the bike is kickstarted.

 

[rc331]

Don't know if this will help or not but....have you tried disconnecting the brake light to see if lights return to normal brightness?.

 

[Durt Cycler]

It seems like the battery ain't drawing enough juice to power up the lights that's why the stator will keep the lights going. I would suspect a wire problem maybe a bad connection somewhere or disconnected wire? Try using some electrical cleaner in the rear light connectors and see if that fixes the problem.....?

 

[jmics19067]

recharge and test your battery just to make sure, disconnect those three wires, and start from scratch. isolate any mistakes, possible something setting on the brake lever leaving your brake light on? are you sure you turned the lights off?

Possible that you disturbed the battery cables in some way?

sounds like to me somehow how you took your battery out of the picture. whether the battery is bad,something wrong with the electrical system draining it or possibly just a bad battery.Or the cables on the battery are bad in some way where it is not really hooked into the sytem

 

[mxracer2000]

Thanks for all the great advice. I tried everything suggested that Im capable of doing and still same problem. Its weird that messing with the 3 wires going to my tail light would cause this kind of problem. Those wires were the only things disturbed when working on the bike. Nothing else was touched purposely or accidently. I decided to take the expensive/easy way out and take it to the shop. Im probably going to kick myself afterwards as this didnt seem to cause any probs after I kick started the bike other than the lights getting slightly dimmer when the rpms dropped. Oh well one of the drawbacks of being a perfectionist is..... it can be expensive

 

[Durt Cycler]

That alright mxracer aslong as you did the best you could then you should be happy! Sometimes problems are beyond our knowledge and it might take a perfessional to fix it. Let us know what the mechanics tells ya! Good luck...DC

 

[jmics19067]

nothing wrong with e paying for the priviledge of blaming somebody else if something isn't right ;)