OK, this is for all you electrical gurus....

 Key is in the "On" position.
First, I notice, horn does not honk. But I see that contact is being made, because the lights dim ever so slightly.

High Beam won't come on, but low beam is normal.
Neutral works. Sidestand light works.... but......

 When I hit the switch to start the engine, nothing happens.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I slowly rotate the steering, and now, when I try to start it, it doesn't start, BUT, the sidestand light turns on (with it up). Each time I hit the start, the sidestand light comes on. Since this happened on the highway (after the bike tuned off on me), I was in such a state of rage, I decided to make light of the situation by flashing out "This sucks" in morse code.        

 Anyways, after lots I'd noticed that if I twist the handlebars to just the right position, it "sometimes" will engage the starter. Sometimes, it'll  turn for a whopping second! But then the starter just turns off, and I get the sidestand light again...  

 Anyways, after a LOT of twisting and turning the steering, turning it all on and off, flipping every switch imaginable, eventually, the stars and planets align just right long enough for me to get a good start.

Left turn, right turn, and brakes working as they should.


   I suspect either a loose ground or a bad cdi box, but if I knew, I wouldn't be posting for help.

 Has anyone had anything similar? Where should I start looking? Yes, I have a multi-meter, but it's been over 15 years since I've had to use one, so I really just forgot what I'm doing, to be frank.

 On a side note, might a bad possible ground as this affect actual engine performance? It got me thinking that this issue might be related to an erratic running engine I have. I mean I was getting good spark at idle, but perhaps it's not consistantly good ?  Every so often I get eratic surging and bogging, which eventually lead to the bike turning off, which lead to the morse code incident.

 Once I get a stable running bike, I'm sure I'll be a better contributor to the forum, but until then, I need this thing to be 100%.  (I just can't have this thing leave me stranded on a dirt road in the desert with no cell signal!)

   Thanks for everything guys.

 

Chinaheart wrote on 10/09/08 at 02:04:55:

Just a wild ass guess, but from what you discribe I would suspect that your 20 year old wires have cracked/worn insulation from weathering and bending.  Possibly near where it leaves the body of the bike and enters the area of the forks where it is moving/pulling.  You can look for worn/cracked insulation, maybe tape up.

But then, your discription sounds more like intermittant opens than shorts.  My first shot would be to find every plug-together connection and work them on/off several times to clean the connections.

hmmm..... I may be a bit slow in my posting, but you have two independent guesses that are exactly the same.

Bad connection somewhere, probably a ground due to the strange symptoms. Check the battery terminals, frame ground, etc. Bad CDI would probably keep it from starting but should still crank.

Check the grounds.