1987 Enticer 340T Electrical short/issue

ashbylaker

New member
Joined
Mar 22, 2016
Messages
6
Location
Ontario, Canada
Need some help diagnosing this.

The head and brake light "go dim" often (once every ride on average). It usually starts bright (normal brightness from both front and rear lights) and then will go dim at random times (when the sled is at idle ~1600-1800rpm, when the brake or highbeams light is pressed, or even when riding at speed although that has only happened to me once).

A normal pattern for the light would be
- start bright
- dims after 2min riding, the last time it occurred when I put the brights on
- goes bright after 10min of riding, usually during a straight stretch when the engine is humming along nicely
- usually, it will stay bright for the rest of the ride, however my buddy had it out on a 40km loop the other night and he lost bright light half way through, never got it back.

Other symptoms
- If the light is dim, and you squeeze the brake hard, it will go bright (only while brake is depressed)
- if you toggle the highbeams, it will flicker dim/bright
- if you toggle the brake, it will flicker dim/bright
- if you let it idle, it will flicker dim/bright.

I included a video of this last symptom. It is very dark out but you can see the instrument panel flickering. This is at idle, when the light is dim.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i3r5bjr16xom9ae/VID_20170210_205023.mp4?dl=0

Couple more important points
- the hood of this sled fell off this fall while being transported by a caring friend who thought the hood straps would hold it down on the highway. When the hood fell off, the plug to the hood wire luckily released, but not before the wire tore out of the foam in the hood, and the wire on the frame side was cut by the metal body of the sled (I have since separated the wires and tapped them back up, they seem intact still). I fear the wire has been pulled on, is my point.
- The blue wire from the voltage regulator (there is a ground, and a blue wire) has a M/F connection on it. below the clear rubber of this connection, there are burn marks. I do not know when they occurred, this is news to me. Might this have something to do with a faulty VR?
- This year, after the hood incident, the sled was running on 1 cylinder. This symptom went away and has not returned, after about 1 hour of use. I am putting that up to a fouled plug, but at the time I thought it was related. Worth a mention.

Where should I start? I have checked all connections I can find that are exposed, I don't see anything loose. I have not yet pulled off the recoil to examine the wires underneath. I do not think it is the voltage regulator as when you press the break, it seems to bypass the short and put the light back to full brightness. Can anyone diagnose what wire might be loose?

Cheers
Tom
 

Well if I had something like that happen I would start there, how ever its certainly not unheard of to have the wires for the back lights short out under the seat somewhere. Might want to pull the seat and take a look
 
Thank you Bob for your reply and apologies for the delayed response. I pulled the seat off the next night and didn't see anything amiss. Now that the season is over, I will have to tear off the recoil and give it a thorough once over. I hope I can report back here with good, simple, news!

Cheers
Tom
 
Want to close this out, I found the issue. It was indeed simple. Putting a multimeter red probe on the cold side of the brake Switch, and the black probe on ground, told me there was a short in the switch; it was leaking 400mV all the time. When it was squeezed tight this drops to 0, and sometimes remains this way, if you're lucky, for the whole ride.

New switch ordered, 40$ shipped. Great simple fix!

Thanks for your help.
 


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