TOPIC:

My Z650B1 is about to be on the road as a thoroughly sorted, hopefully dependable year-round bike. After buying it two years ago and riding it home, life suddenly turned really busy, and it is only now that I got round to tackling the many issues it has. It now has dual front brakes (freshly overhauled), new rear brake, new rear spokes, new tires, etcetera. The wiring problems it had were easily found: the previous owner had removed the fuse box, some wires had melted and short-circuited.
Fairly easy to fix - or so I thought.
I cleaned all the contacts, repaired the wiring, checked for a good ground and decent voltage everywhere. All the lights/blinkers work, starter turns the engine over, good spark on all four plugs. Nevertheless, when I turn the bike on, the battery voltage drops to below 12 volts (about 11.5V) and the main fuse gets really warm. That should probably not be happening...
So:
- With the contact turned off, there is no voltage. (With negative lead disconnected from the negative battery terminal, with multimeter between the two.)
- With the contact turned on, everything works, but the main fuse gets hot, after a few minutes a clicking sound can be heard from behind the left-hand sidecover (were the blinker relay and regulator are) and the battery voltage drops.

Obviously, there is a short somewhere. Any ideas on how to track it down without dismantling the whole system?

I just realized that since I measure no voltage when the bike is turned off (with the negative lead disconnected from the battery and measuring between neg lead and negative battery terminal), a short is not likely.
The reason for the main fuse getting warm with the ignition on and the engine turned off, might be current through one or both coils. Could this be correct?


PS: Just found another problem while checking the tank: there is a hole near the petcock: about 3mm by 2mm. It never stops:(