Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Update on whats going on. Today I went to try to put on the new solenoid i got. I took off the side plates and seat and could not get to the bolts that hold on the solenoid. After trying for a while i gave up frustrated and put the seat and side coverings back on. Before i left i popped the key in and turned it, and walah it came on! I guess while i was moving all the wires around under the seat i reconnected the short. I rode the bike back home and i am going to take it to a smaller more humble shop tommarow and have them check over connections. I think i know more now I'm pretty sure its a short. Hopefully they can track it down. Funny how that worked out huh, haha. Thanks for all the input fellas, and ladies. I will update when i hear back from the shop. Peace and love. -Forest

coffee_brake wrote:Good on ya FRA...don't be afraid to get in there and start checking connections yourself. The Intruder is a remarkably durable and simple bike. Oh, do I have stories of what I unintentionally did to that poor machine and it STILL ran great all the time...I bet if you can meet some other riders and find some good folks to run with, bikers tend to help out other bikers.

Ofblong---bad plug wire draining the battery? I have never heard of this. How does something like this happen? Could you tell us more about this?

because when you have a shorted plug wire it tends to take ALOT of juice to try and fire that cylinder because of the short. It wont drain the battery right away but can take a few days (in my case 2-3 cause of how often I started and stopped the bike). My bike has 2 wires which makes it difficult. Something like your car that has 6 cylinders isnt gonna matter much battery wise because 5 are still starting not requireing much battery power. with my bike that short was causing my system to not get enough power to be able to charge the battery fully because it was constantly sending EXTRA volatage to that wire because of the short. I am having a hard time explaining what I mean so hopefully I didnt confuse you lol.

The Intruder has a weird battery placement and most people get it wrong when fitting a new battery (its behind the transmission and has to be fitted from underneath) The solenoid clicking is due to battery problem. You have low volts, hitting starter button energises solenoid coil which activates contacts o starter moor causing around an 80~90 amp draw. This lowers voltage until solenoid cant keep contactors in place so they drop and the cycle repeats as long as your holding starter buton and you get the brrrrtt noise.

I kind of understand what you said. But why do you think that messing around with the wires under the seat could of fixed the problem. That is what made me think its a short. Because i didnt touch the battery or the battery connections, that doesnt match up in my mind at least.

If it was a short you would either blow main fuse or set fire to wiring. More likely you have a loose connector. Have you had any work done on bike which needed tank/seat removal? maybe just pulled a connector apart and its a bad contac.

If it was a short you would either blow main fuse or set fire to wiring. More likely you have a loose connector. Have you had any work done on bike which needed tank/seat removal? maybe just pulled a connector apart and its a bad contact.

The only work that has been done under the seat im pretty sure was just me tinkering around. But a loose contact sounds about right, seeing as after i was done messing around it started right up. Its in the shop now and i explained as well as i could to the mechanic what happened. I'm just hoping he can get it to malfuntion again so he can use the voltage meter on it to track down the problem. I think he should be able to by doing the same thing i did though.