Post by sillylittleboy on Apr 8, 2017 20:10:59 GMT -6
My fun little troubleshooting nightmare learning experience has finally ended (fingers crossed). It started out with a starter that stopped turning after a few tries following a winter's hibernation. It sounded like a bad battery, but charging my battery to full capacity didn't resolve it. I thought for a minute that it might be the starter relay, but following those relay control wires back to the source I found the broken starter switch.
It took me two tries to get the right Kill Switch/Starter Button assembly. I even tried to add a wire and re-wire the wrong switch (same connectors but only 3 wires in the plug vs. 4 wires on the original), but the best I got was the starter being engaged whenever I applied the brake.
Hooked up the new (correct) switch and plugged everything in and turned on the ignition, the kill switch to on, and then hit the starter button and... NOTHING?!?! I've got the wiring diagram and I know what's happening with all the items that must connect to finally allow the 12vdc to connect to the starter relay (brake switch, ignition switch, kill switch) and turn that starter. I test the brake switch by doing a continuity between the two terminals and applying the brake... nothing! But when I hook a jumper across those two terminals and turn the ignition switch... BAM... it blows the fuse. That confused the heck out of me for a bit, but I finally figured out that it was blowing the fuse because at some point during "the process" one of those terminals became ground, which is just find so long as it's not connected to the other terminal or it would... blow the fuse.
So I waited until the ignition was turned on, the kills switch turned on, and then I put the jumper across the terminals for the brake switch, and then I hit the starter button and... YEA! It all worked. I'm re-wiring the brake switch loop to remove the left brake switch from that loop (since it's broken) and wiring in the right brake switch into that loop (it was passively connected before, now it'll be actively connected).
I definitely learned a lot about how these scooters work and wire AND I discovered some areas with serious "Chinese Manufacturing flaws" that I can and will be easily fixing. Starting with the wiring harness and working back there are places along that "cabled" group of wires where 3, 4, or 5 same color wires that are all tied together/connected by simply wrapping the wires around each other and then throwing some black electrical tape around it. I've got plenty of shrink tubes and a soldering iron with good solder. I'm going to clean up all those connections and make them much stronger and solid.
Now comes the real fun part - putting it all back together again. And I just realized that it might be useful for someone some day it I photo/video some of my efforts with the re-assembly. Getting the throttle cable connected back on the handle properly was a little tricky, but easy enough because... Thank Goodness for all of those who came before, been there before, and/or still hanging out there. Great resources here and on YouTube. Found one of the generic wiring diagrams on here that matched mine right down to the colors of the wires.
WOO HOO! I'll be back up and scooting around town by this time tomorrow evening.
ose wires green wires are all tied together