Electrical Accy fuse blowing

[stevel]

My recently purchased 97 electra glide is blowing the accy fuse meaning I have no indicators.
I'm pretty sure they worked when I bought it and rode it home , so it must be something i've done,which is to remove the tour pak and fit a new Sony stereo using a biketronics kit.Everything else seems to work except the indicators.
Are there any common pinch points on the accy circuit?
Whats the best way to find the short circuit?
I have a probe thing which I can connect to earth or live and it lights up when it finds the opposite current , so can I connect that to live and probe along the circuit till it indicates earth?

Steve

[Limey_Dave]

You need to sit down with the wiring diagram,and trace all circuits from that fuse.If there's more than one wire from the fuse,disconnect them,then test each one to earth.You can also connect one at a time till the fuse goes.If there's only one wire,go to where it divides,and do the same there.
If I had to take a stab,I'd say there's a stray wire hanging around where to took off the tour pak,or you've disturbed something in the rats nest at the front when you fitted the stereo.

[banquo]

Originally Posted by stevel

it must be something i've done

Possibly, or probably, but could be something completely different

Originally Posted by stevel

Everything else seems to work except the indicators.

That's your first clue then. If the indicators don't work when that fuse is blown, then they must be fed by that fuse, and the problem is likely to be in that circuit, so check all wiring in indicator circuit first. Did it have indicators on the TourPak? If so, what happened to those wires when you took the TourPak off?

Originally Posted by stevel

I have a probe thing which I can connect to earth or live and it lights up when it finds the opposite current , so can I connect that to live and probe along the circuit till it indicates earth?

If a wire in that circuit has shorted to 'earth' then every wire in that circuit is also connected to earth, because all the wires are connected together, so you can't check that way. You need to progressively disconnect as Dave mentioned, until you find the part of the circuit that's shorted out.

To save yourself a fortune in fuses, it would be useful to make yourself a rewireable fuse. Take a blown fuse and solder a wire to each end. Take the 2 wires to a bit of 5A connector block from B&Q or similar, and pick up a card of fuse wire at the same time. By bridging the two extension wires with a suitable rating of fusewire, and plugging the dead fuse back into the bike, you have a fuse that can be rewired, rather than replace dozens of proper ones as you try to trace the fault. Good luck.

As a first step, I'd look at any wiring you disconnected at the rear, and if that's OK, I'd try removing and checking all indicator bulbs, as it's not unknown for a bulb to fail to earth, causing a short circuit.

[Limey_Dave]

For fault finding.

VWP - fuse holders 3

15A is prob the same as your acc fuse,and a CB will trip sooner than a fuse will blow on a simple fault.On a dead short,there's nothing in it.

[banquo]

Neat Dave; haven't seen them before.

Steve - thinking a bit more about this, if you replace the fuse, does it blow immediately, even if you don't use the indicators?

If it does, then the fault's before the indicator switch.

If it only fails when you use the indicators, does it fail on right or on left? This might help isolate the problem.

Does it have a hazard warning switch on that year?

[Limey_Dave]

Before I scramble my brain with the wiring diagram,can you confirm this is a UK model FLHT?
Carb or injection?
In the meantime,you could try disconnecting all the feed and earth connections from the biketronics kit.It wouldn't be the first time something had a misprint in the instructions.
I once blacked out an entire London hotel because the internal link diagram with a new contactor was wrong.

[stevel]

Thanks for all the advice guys , I've managed to sort it.
It was indeed something I did - when I installed the stereo I had the bright idea of wiring a headphone socket in , connected to the speaker power terminals.
It worked fine so I thought nothing of it when thinking about the fuse blowing , but for some reason it grounded the orange/white wire.
Which is odd as none of the speaker wires are orange/white.
And all the speaker terminal wires are live which puzzled me somewhat.

It just goes to show there's nothing worse than a resourceful idiot

I've unconnected the headphone socket until I can figure (or find) out just how to wire in a headphone socket....
On the plus side I now know where all the electrical connectors and modules are.

Cheers
Steve

[Limey_Dave]

Glad you sorted it.
I think there's an orange/white cable that goes from the acc fuse to the acc switch at the front,then back to acc socket under seat.

[mr. pitts]

Hey Steve, you only made one mistake. That's bl@@dy good going that is. Well done for finding the fault all by yer lonesome.
Mr. Pitts.

[stevel]

All sorted - wired the headphone socket to the stereo rear speaker outputs and everything works as it should.
Don't know why I didn't think of that in the first place