Left stranded!

[Kiwi_Roy]

Jumpering the two large terminals will make the motor spin but it will not cause the gear to engage, Jumper to the small terminal will engage the starter and crank.

Yes the start circuit fuse will blow if you have a bad solenoid contact OR loose terminal in the heavy wire, this is because until the contact makes the solenoid draws about 50 Amps but it won't happen unless you push Go.

In your original post you said the motor cut out when you were slowing down i.e. you were not using the starter at the time.

The idea of using a lamp in place of the fuse is to limit the available current so there is no possibility of letting out the magic smoke. If the light is dim or off there is no short, if it's at full brightness chances are the short is in place, wiggle the wires and soon you may find a point where the lamp flickers. I use an old headlamp bulb for this, it limits the current to about 5 Amps.

You didn't by any chance accidentally connect positive to the ECU case while disconnecting the battery did you?

Someone else did that and caused a short in the loom when the tiny ground wire became red hot and melted through adjacent wires.

Pull the tank off, you probably pinched something when you put the airbox back, electric petcock wires perhaps

Which fuse blows, numbered from the front (what is the symbol?)

 

It's always harder to find an intermittent fault, just systematically go step by step.

Does the fuse blow before or after I turn the key on?

Turn off the kill switch, Unplug the sidestand relay, unplug fuse 8 (petcock)

With a new fuse when I turn the key on do the idiot lights turn on

Replace the sidestand relay

Turn on the kill switch.

 

At some point if the fuse blows you can isolate the problem between two points.

 

Don't forget to examine the wires where they solder to the ignition switch, my friends unmolested LeMans had a wire break off there where it was flexing, it didn't short but his tail light stopped working.

[thebronze]

Hi Roy, no I hadnt touched anything on the bike in the past two months.  I put the airbox back on last November and had a couple nice rides to test it out.  The bike sat for the past 2 or 3 months with only an occasional bat charge and a brief warm up of the motor to knock the dust off.  Thats why I thought it was the battery but last night it shows 12.6.

 

The fuse blows about 2 to 8 seconds after I turn the key on.  The lights come on and then it pops.

 

I'll try your suggestions later tonight.

[Tom M]

IIRC someone here reported a poorly routed tail light wire that rubbed through and shorted out at the back of his '04.  You might want to check that area.

[thebronze]

This is fixed and it was my fault.  When I replaced the timing cover gasket I left the side stand sensor wire hanging loose and it was wedged behind the exhaust pipe.  The plastic melted and shorted the current to ground.  Pretty easy fix once I knew where to look.  Do I really need that sensor?

[GuzziMoto]

No, you don't NEED it, but it is a good safety feature to have.

[Chuck]

Electrical problems are always easy to fix. What sometimes takes time is *finding* what needs to be fixed..