84 yamaha venture power issue

Hey all,

Have an 84 Yamaha Venture. Has this quirk where every so often when
firing up the bike - when the start button is pressed, the power to
the entire bike shuts off. Dash goes blank as if the battery had been
removed.

Popping the leads off the battery and then reconnecting solves the
problem and the bike then starts up fine.

Yesterday, however, power to the entire bike cut out without any
prompting from me while I was full throttle down the highway. Had to
coast onto a thin left shoulder of a busy bridge with cagers climbing
up my tailpipe.

Again, I popped the battery leads, reconnected and was able to start
the bike. Then went 300 more miles on the day without any trouble.

Before I start ripping things apart - does anyone have any ideas as to
what's going on?

Thanks,

DB

 

Take a look at the other ends of the battery cables.
If they respond well to wiggling at the battery end,
my bet is a loose connection at the other end.

 

I would troubleshoot the battery buss (1), all the way from where the
buss gets power from the battery, through the main fuse, on through
the ignition key, and back to the ignition buss on the fuse panel.

Sometime the main fuze holder gets hot and oxidized and won't allow
much power through it.

Sometimes the ignition switch gets so hot it melts the solder off the
wires connected to it, and sometimes the switch contacts get all
burned and oxidized inside where you cannot see the problem.

(1) Clue: the battery buss is not yellow, but it's powered by the
battery...

 

Whatever is the problem, don't ride the bike until it's been
correctly fixed. Your highway experience was a warning.
Don't wind up in the morgue.

 

Buy the shop manual...the RTFM. Pay especial attention to the
electrical section.

 

Hey if I can stumble through a clymer book reading the eletrical
systems and sorting it out following the "tree" and troubleshooting
directions they give...anybody can do it and no I'm not joking...

 

I much prefer Haynes for electrical troubleshooting.

My Haynes manual has color diagrams while my Clymer
is all black and white. Makes a world of difference.
The Clymer is way old, so this may have changed.

 

and mine was written in the 70's and I was an inexperienced 16 y/o.
Got the headlights to work though...using a clymer no less. I consider
me lucky.

 

Like I said, if you get the chance, treat yourself
to some color wiring diagrams. The whole picture
suddenly gets way clearer.

Clymer's artwork generally sucks. Haynes OTOH
pads their already skimpy manual with boilerplate.
My shafty BMW manual tells me all about changing
drive chains for example. The diagrams and photos
are way, way better though.

My bet on the Yammie is still a loose battery cable at
the end not connected to the battery.

 

agreed...there isn't much to a T-500 but they seem to leave one
hanging.

Not the one for my wing, only colour in it is me highlighting the
black and white(why aren't there 64 colors of highlighters?)

 

IIRC the only manual other than a shop manual for that particular
motorcycle (Suzuki T-500) was the clymer. Nice thing is they tell you
some basic porting settings AND give dimension for a set of tuned
pipes that supposedly work well the the port and piston mods. 8^) The
part about the brakes was spot on and I ended up with braking that
could let me out brake RD400's and GT-500's. I've alwasy been a setup
the suspension and brakes FIRST kind of guy...worry about the power
when the chasis can handle it.

 

I actually approve of this sort of approach.

 

2 wheels, 4 wheels...it's the same to me. Only the dynamics get more
interesting when you have just 2 wheels.