TOPIC:

I have a kz 1100 1981. While I was riding today everything was normal then as I was pulling into a parking lot (thank god not on highway) it just shut off, for a second I thought I stalled so I went to turn it on and nothing happened, it didn't even try to turn over. When the key is turned to the on position no lights work ie. neutral light, blinkers, nothing. So now im stuck. Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Could be a short somewhere. When you parked, turning the bars caused the short to occur. Check the main fuses. If one is blown, there's a chance you can replace it and the bike will run as long as you don't turn the bars all the way. It might get you home, but bring extra fuses.

If it were just a fuse then it would have gone out in stages, i.e. one blows but you still have other electronics working. I agree with the catastrophic short, but it is hard to determine where it could be.

Couldn't it also be an open? Or broken wire somewhere major?

Check the obvious stuff first. Fuses, battery terminals, damaged wire (pinched, worn, burned), plug connections (one of my coils came unplugged from the ignition via a partially pulled connector) Get some clues, and go from there.

If nothing seems wrong at first, get it home 'somehow' and get out the $20 Radio-shack multi-meter and a wiring diagram and start checking wires. If you ground the tester to your frame, sometimes you can find a wire that is connected to the frame when it should not be, ergo it is shorted. But intermittent shorted wires can be befuddling, in that they seem fine, usually while you are testing them.

If you have a wiring diagram, get it out and start supposing from what you have observed, then go to the bike and search some more. This is how I ultimately found my wiring problem. Power out of the battery, through the stuff, and back to the battery. Makes sense if you care to put some time in to it.

I had a burned power wire that went up my main taped bundle that had burned its, and neighboring wire's insulation that would get finicky on wet days. This does not seem likely for your case, but be ready for a little puzzle solving here.

Was it wet out when this happened?

grl06 wrote:

I have a kz 1100 1981. While I was riding today everything was normal then as I was pulling into a parking lot (thank god not on highway) it just shut off, for a second I thought I stalled so I went to turn it on and nothing happened, it didn't even try to turn over.

When mine started doing that it turned out to be the ignition switch. I remember thinking: "It's just like somebody turned off the ignition switch..." Eventually, I thought "Maybe it is the ignition switch."


FYI, old fuses can get flaky. If they are more than a few years old, ditch them and put in new ones. I remember once driving up my street I stepped on the brakes (back when I ran regular bulbs three wide in the back for brake lights) and the main fuse just blew. There was nothing wrong in the wiring, old fuses can sometimes just blow at a current level well below their rated current.

As has been said, old fuses blow w/o a reason. Check the main fuse. I once was on the interstate, 30mi from home, 1am and everything died. Found the main fuse was blown, found a piece of aluminum gum wrapper and wrapped it around the fuse, put it back in, she fired right up and got home.

ronjones wrote:

As has been said, old fuses blow w/o a reason. Check the main fuse. I once was on the interstate, 30mi from home, 1am and everything died. Found the main fuse was blown, found a piece of aluminum gum wrapper and wrapped it around the fuse, put it back in, she fired right up and got home.

My new rule is I take the fuses out and look at them. If the center of the conductor is turning blue or has that curly effect, they get thrown away.

wow guys thanks for all the great advice! I took the seat off and what did I see? A blown fuse. It was the third fuse if looking at the box in riding position and looking from left to right. So I hitched a ride to discount auto zone and popped in a new one and it fired right up! Now that I think about it all the fuses in there looked like they came from the stone age, I should prob replace them all. Like I said, thanks for the advice.

I think Loud's onto it. A lot of these old machines develop intermittent opens and possibly even shorts in the wiring harnesses right where they're forced to bend by the turning of the handle bars.

It's usually not too hard to recreate the problem by fiddling with the harnesses while the bike's running in neutral.

KZCSI

It happened to me on my KZP. As I turned into my parking spot at work (a sharp turn), the bike died. I thought it was strange, and when I attempted to go home and turn out of my parking spot, the bike died (again). Needless to say, I did not get very far and began to investigate. It turned out that an electrical connection under the headlight that feeds the ignition switch and ignition system was loose. It turned out that the connector clip had broken off and the connection was loose and the circuit was open(especially when I turned the handlebars). Once I reconnected and secured with a zip tie (wire tie), I had zero problems.

Check where the kill switch wires come out of the control housing could be pinched between housing and bars or it could have rubbed a hole in the insulation.thats what happened to mine.

Last year my 650 started blowing main fuses. It wasn't an "old fuse" problem as it continued blowing new ones, too. I had a couple of problems. I couldn't find a short anywhere but it seemed like my regulator might be intermittent. It was shorted one time, fine another time. So I removed it and adjusted it. The bike ran for a couple of days then blew another fuse. This time the fuse and fuse box showed signs of heat damage. And this was after I had cleaned the contacts on the fuse and clips in the fuse box. I replaced the fuse box with a blade type unit from Advance Auto. Best thing I've ever done for that bike. No more blowing fuses, and everything seems to have more power. Brighter lights, faster flashers, etc. AND, I had an extra fuse that I used for Wiredgeorge's coil power mod.