by DiscoPete » Sun May 05, 2013 11:58 pm
With almost no electrical skils you are limited to doing a visual inspection of the wire insulation and connectors, disconnecting/connecting things and turning things on and off to see what is blowing the fuse. This would require a supply of fuses to last you through the test procedures.
Starting at the blown fuse and working toward the equipment getting power from that fuse, check for visible breaks in the insulation that allows the inner conductor to contact something it should not, for example, the bike's frame or other wires. Look for loose connections in the wiring harness and water that may have gotten into connectors, etc.
If the wiring between the fuse and the heated grips is good, there could be a short in the grips or the power switch to them. Maybe water got into the grips or the switch. If necessary, the wiring harness can be pulled apart at the connectors to isolate different sections of the wiring.
If there was nothing connected to the auxillary socket when that fuse blew, and the socket is the only thing connected to the fuse, that looks like shorted wiring or a short in the socket.
It isn't hard to learn to take voltage and resistance measurements using an inexpensive meter from WalMart or Radio Shack. It's well worth doing. Then with the meter and the bike's wiring diagram, it is a straightforward job.
This sounds like a job for tech day if you can't find anything wrong by looking at it and fiddling with the wires.
Good Luck.
PS: Using techniques like these, I fixed my Subaru last spring when it died in the driveway because the main fuse was blown. The wiring diagram indicated that the main fuse fed power directly to the engine computer and the fuel pump via the ignition switch. Everything else got power from the main fuse through a relay that closed after the fuel pump and engine computer switched on.
So I disconnected the fuel pump and found that the fuse still blew, but after a slight delay caused by the relay switching. Trouble was, there were a lot of components that got power through that relay, so which one was shorted ???
From a Subaru BB, I learned that O2 sensors frequently shorted when their wire insulation melted against the exhaust pipes. In my case, the insulation on the O2 sensor cable had rubbed against the right front axle shaft until the wires shorted to that.
It took some time to do all this because I wasn't familiar with the layout of the car, but it was a straightforward process. It can be done, even the first time you try it.
Last edited by
DiscoPete on Mon May 06, 2013 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
-Pete