Battry13 fusesgood new statr rr bike dead no pwr no nothn

My 2001 5th gen died after warm up and half mile ride. No sign of electrical power any where. I checked the power switch, cycled the key off and on, still no sigh of power. Pushed home. I checked all the fuses I could see. Including two seperate 30A. All were good. I measured the battery (less than one year old) with multimeter; it looked like 13 dc volts (?). I had a new stator and r/r dealer installed last year (bike has 99,000 miles). With rear cowl removed all the wires, connectors, etc. looked normal. I've been riding at least every 2 weeks all winter w/o problems.
The catch? I hooked up a pair of Gerbing T5 12V heated gloves a couple of weeks ago. Following the directions exactly, there was a harness connected to the battery posts, a harness I wore inside my jacket, and connectors from the jacket harness to each of the gloves and to the battery harness. I used the gloves twice within the last week w/o a problem. I am not sure the problem is the gloves.

I'm a rookie with multimeter and anything electrical. And I could not find a similar situation in the electrical threads.

I'm hoping for suggestions and help figuring this out. Thanks in advance.


Fixed! See below. It WAS a fuse.




Edited by MaxSwell, 13 March 2012 - 06:27 PM.

What voltage do you get if you measure from the positive battery terminal to the frame? I wondering if you have a corroded ground (follow the negative battery cable to where it's bolted to the frame).

Positive to frame - I'll go check that now.

My multimeter is not very precise but positive to frame reading is essecentially the same as positive to negative on battery.

I once blew the fuse on the starter relay on the old girl she was dead too, it took me forever to find it. It is behind the fuse box and behind the main bus fuse, on the back of battery box toward the fuel tank you have to peel back the rubber flap to get to it, might even have to unhook the main fuse box.

Then you have to figure out if you have a wire shorting out, since the only thing you changed was that glove wire it might be rubbed up against the frame or smashed by the seat and it might have exposed the lead wire.

Thanks, I'll have to check it out tomorrow more throughly in the daylight. I did find a 30a fuse buried under a smaller rubber flap closer to the tank, kinda by it's self. I have a shop manual I'll consult for all the fuse locations.

Thanks, I'll have to check it out tomorrow more throughly in the daylight. I did find a 30a fuse buried under a smaller rubber flap closer to the tank, kinda by it's self. I have a shop manual I'll consult for all the fuse locations.

By itself? I think that's the main bus fuse, just to the left of the fuse box. It goes from the Battery and connects it to the RR.

Sounds like a basic connection problem from the battery terminals! I've had that happen before so it's worth checking. Remove all wires screwed to the battery terminal posts, clean the terminals and attach all wires again.

As all VFR owners know though, the source of most issues is the 30 amp fuse "all by itself" that you found. The wires and terminals in there can actually melt and disconnect. Have a very close look at it.

Thanks to the above suggestions I've got it running. Kaldek, I checked all the connections and a 30A fuse (hidden in a green receptical under a red cap) was blown. A black plug wired to the harness also terminated at the same thingie. I first tried to list all the fuses and missed this one. Of course it was the last possible connection to be checked w/o further dismantling.
H.S. you got me pointed in the right direction, looking for the elusive starter relay fuse (is that what is in the green box?). The red cap must be removed to expose it.
BTW, here is my inventory of fuses:
Fuse box: two 20A, four 10A. Right in front of the fuse box: one 10A (labeled clock). The battery case: one 30A. Forward from the battery case, toward the gas tank hinge: one 30A. Very close bye is the hidden 30A in green box under a red cap.

If I've missed any, feel free to add to the list for future reference.

Glad you got it fixed. I was with Kaldek on it being loose battery terminals, as I've had that happen to me as well. Didn't know there was another fuse until HS mentioned it.

Now the question becomes what blew the fuse? Any ideas what that particular fuse is for? Could heated grips (2.2amp, 27 watts, the only extra electrical load  on this bike) cause THIS fuse to burn? The harness has it's own 3A fuse, which looks fine.

Its the starter relay like I thought it was, just work back from your most recent work and go from there, if you added wires to the battery then you must have shorted it somewhere, perhaps you did not get the battery secure and it grounded? or the wires got smashed and grounded out, or a wire is chafed after moving it?

I went for an eighty mile ride yesterday with out incident. H.S. I hope you are right. I took a picture of the location of the three 30A fuses. If I'm not mistaken it shows the location of all the fuses I found, listed above. Just the 30A s are marked with pink tags.

Attached Images

• [image: fuse location 004.JPG]