Circuit breaker short found

[1955fle]

Well I found the short on the circuit breaker wire. It ended up being the pos wire from the lights on the dash that were grounding. Has anyone changed the light sockets that are on the dash. This is an original dash for a "55. The sockets I am talking about are the OIL and GEN lights. It only grounds when the bulbs are in. I understand that the sockets need to be crimped on to the dash plate. Is there a trick to do this? I don't have the correct tool to do this. or is there another solution that I can use to fix the sockets that are there? I have replaced all of the wires that come from each socket and the insulators look good.

[59Panman]

Try ruiter,

He does dash plate restoration. http://www.ruiter.ca/mc/services/dashbases/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[fourthgear]

1955fle
Do you have the ones with little finger tabs on them around the bulb socket?

[1955fle]

fourthgear, the sockets do have the finger tab the comes off of the bottom of the socket. So there are 2 wires one (POS) from the center that goes through the insulator and to the center of the bulb and the second wire that comes off of the finger tab to ground.

[fourthgear]

1955fle
Mine don't sound like yours , mine might be after market. Mine have bendable fingers at the top of the socket and you just pry them up enough to push it Thu the dash and then fold them over the dash . I used a deep well socket under bulb socket and a small 1/4 \" drive socket to press them tightly against the dash and then flattened them out with another larger socket to finish it off.

[1955fle]

Well this has me baffeled! Can someone tell me what might be happening here. I am still talking about the OIL GEN light sockets. I have changed the wires, replaced the insulator, put swrink tube right up to the button at the end of the wire. I have disconnected the POS wire from the dash. The ground wire is connected to the dash. Without the bulb in the socket there is a break in the circuit when tested with an ohm meter. So the wires are insulated from each other. This is how I believe it should be. When I put the bulb in the ohm meter showh that the POS wire is shorting to ground. I think this is a problem. Am I right or am I missing something?

[fourthgear]

1955fle
All lights are grounded when there is a bulb in there . 12 V frame ground systems have to go to ground some where to function , be it an oil pressure switch or an neutral switch they all ground to frame( motor to frame , to Batt. - neg. ) to work. Now if you have a grounded circuit with out the bulb , some thing is not right. What you are reading is Thu the filament in the bulb. You have a ground wire to the dash ?

[1955fle]

fourhtgear, the problem I am having is the grounded circuit is making its way back to the circuit breaker through the coil. I have the bike wired using the standard wiring diagram in the users manual. Maybe I have something wired wrong. I will go back and check all of the connections to make sure they follow the diagram.

[fourthgear]

1955fle
When you say circuit breaker , do you mean circuit interrupter like a circuit breaker on the batt. plus ( + )term. ? Meaning its tripping when you turn ign. switch on . If so you do have a dead short . You can start to look for it by disconnecting wires from both ends and see if they or what they are connected to is grounded. Its a long procedure, but you might get lucky on the first one or two , if you know what circuit is giving you trouble ie lights, ign. , brake lights etc.

[1955fle]

When I say circuit breaker I mean the points. This is where the short is showing up. I have traced all of the wires and think I found the problem. More testing tonight and I will let you know how it goes

[Panacea]

fourthgear, did you say 12V positive ground system? MW

[1955fle]

Well I thought I found the problem that I was having but nothing has changed. I found the the OIL and GEN light sockets were wired backwards. So the POS wire was on a neg terminal and the NEG wire was on a pos terminal. Changed them around but when I put a bulb in the socket I have the same problem. This circuit goes all the way back to the points and grounds out the points. This problem is realy driving me crazy. I will leave the 2 bulbs out for the time being until I figure it out.

[fourthgear]

panacea
Sorry about the positive ground remark, what it meant was your frame is the ground and the battery neg. (-) is connected to frame and that makes the bike a part of the system ground ( positively grounded system ), the newer systems are a type neg. ground system meaning almost all circuits are grounded back to the neg. term. on the battery and not to the frame and that makes them a neg. type ground system. Sorry , I should have explained myself better.
1955fle
We can call it a distributor , timer , circuit breaker what ever , I wasn't sure what you meant at the time . So you are saying you can't start the bike? Or is it just the indicator lights stay on? If you have a grounded distributor ,points etc. , make sure the coil is not grounded, isolate that circuit , take the wire from the points off the coil and check the points for being grounded , the distributor, timer , circuit breaker is grounded to the system as all on motor, frame , but the terminal on the points where the coil wire connects should not be at all . What distributor do you have ,manual, auto adv. , etc. ?

[1955fle]

OK here is what I have found. The wire from the points to the coil continues through the coil to the rear terminal board. From there through wires connefted to the same terminal it goes to the dash plate. The terminal on the dash plate also has the wire fron the OIL and GEN dash lights. For some reason these bulb sockets are grounding. I have rebuilt both sockets to make sure that nothing is touching groune except the groung wire of the socket. When I remove the bulb the circuit is open (when I use an ohm meter and go from the pos wire on the socket to ground I get no continuity) which is correct. When I put the bulb in the socket and I test with an ohm meter I get continuity. Because this bulb curciut is connected to the same circuit as the points, the points are also grounding. By that I mean that weather the points are open or closed I get continuity reading across the points. Because the points are always closed the bike is almost impossible to start. I know this is a lot and very confusing.

[fourthgear]

1955fle
Of course it is difficult to trouble shoot a system with out being there to put your hands on it , but what you should do for the time being is run a wire directly from the batt. pos. (+) term to the coil + term. and eliminate ( disconnect it at both ends )the one you have , that should isolate that circuit ( ignition ) Which will let you start and ride as long as nothing else stops you from running safely( brake lights , lights etc.) The wire you are referring to goes from the coil ( 12v power source to coil ) to # 41 on rear term. board and from there it connects to the brake light switch (12V power to brake switch )and from that # 41 term. to # 6 term. on the dash board, that term. ( # 6 ) connects to ign. switch for 12V power source and from that # 6 term. on dash it ( 12V + ) should also power up all indicator lights on the dash ie oil , gen. ,neu. , I kind of went back wards because I started from the coil , but it all starts at the ign. switch and is distributed to that # 6 term. on dash to the ind. lights and to the # 41 term. on rear term. board then to coil.
As I have said , eliminate( temporarily until you find the short ) the coil wire( 12V + source to coil )and replace it with one straight to the batt. and you should have a complete and ungrounded ign. circuit( unless the points plate or coil is grounding out ) . This is by stock wire schematic , yours may be diff. . Once you have a good ign. circuit you can isolate each wire or term. to see which is giving you a ground. Don't forget that that # 6 term. on the dash is isolated from the metal of the dash by insulators for that purpose and could be compromised.