Hi guys. So I went to start my Madness 125 earlier, on kick start as the battery was dead, just to see if I could get the engine to run. Eventually gave up and decided to poke around, there was definitely fuel getting to the carb but I suspected lack of spark, so decided to ask someone to put jump leads from their car to my ped to see if I could get any juice into the dead battery, ran a voltage tester across the battery, showed full power coming from the car, 14.5v, but nothing would work, no horn, no starter, no lights, not even the backlight LEDs in the instrument cluster. Just the faint digits of the clock. Took the jump leads off, voltage dropped to barely 5v as it usually is when I test it. I have checked the in-line fuse next to the battery and it's fine. If my battery is totally fried (which it is obviously) would that prevent any power getting to the spark plug on kick start? Cheers.
Ok brand new battery arrived today, hooked it up, it shows good voltage, and absolutely nothing electrical works when I turn on the ignition. The only thing that works is the clock... I can get a power reading with a voltage tester from the Live wire in the ignition switch plug and on what I believe is the starter solenoid, small gold-colored metal cylinder with red and black wires attached to it with round terminals. Are there any hidden fuses or relays anywhere on the ped that I'm not aware of, and can anyone please let me know which component/s I should be checking? On a car 9 times out of 10 it would be the ignition switch that's gone, I wonder if that's the same story with my ped... Really confusing and frustrating as you can imagine, haven't even had a chance to see if the engine runs yet.
Right, well I managed to get somewhere with this, as I suspected, it is the ignition switch that's faulty, I removed it, cleaned it, put it back, nothing. So I banged on it and now can get electrics to turn on, and even got the engine running which is a bonus, BUT there are still electrical gremlins, like one of the headlights doesn't work and turning the headlights on turns off a sidelight, brakelight constantly on with the ignition turned on, so there is still some work to be done, I will try to clean as many electrical plugs and connections as possible and see how it goes, but will also look out for a replacement ignition switch. Got the horn to work again, it was basically bad contacts on the terminals, bit of wiggling did the trick there. So some good progress with the ped, but still a way to go!
Ok, well I've had some progress with this issue, just posting here for reference for others, I've unplugged the headlights/sidelights and sprayed the plugs with electrical cleaner, as they looked a bit corroded/dirty and now have both front sidelights and headlights, dipped and high beam fully functioning. The brake light which stayed on constantly with ignition on turned out to be because I'd previously removed the rear brake handle as I plan to swap out the rear brake system so wanted to see what access was like at the handlebar end. That works fine too. Changed the ignition switch too, although keeping the old one as I now believe it still worked, but it's good to have a spare just in case.
