Electrical Issue

I'm new to Norton and have an electrical issue. For those keeping track, I just rebuilt the clutch. So my learning curve is in high gear.

The fuse is fine, but it doesn't seem to tap the entire power of the battery when I turn the key. I first thought the battery was an issue only to see it was 100%. I checked the ground and cleaned them. I also visually inspected the wiring inside the headline...everything looks ok. My issue maybe the key lock. Every once in a while it made a loud "pop" when I turned the key. It was so odd I didn't put it all together. Now the lites are dim and the horn is weak! In fact, I got it started and the horm (when mashed) killed the motor. I think there is a short in the key lock. Could that be right? How could I test?

More likely the ignition switch has a bad contact.

The way to troubleshoot is to have the wiring diagram in front of you with a voltmeter. You measure what's going into the switch and compare to what's comming out. Does it behave the same way in both ignition alone and ignition with lights positions?

Yeah, if you can take that ign switch apart, clean and lube it with de-ox. The pop you heard is probably sparking across high resistance terminals in your switch and then you have low voltage to certain things. The early ones are easy, they're off and on, and can be put back together with 6-32 screws, but the later ones have multiple settings, I don't know about them.

Dave
69S

If you disconnect all the wires from the ignition switch and connect them all together with clip leads (or even paper clips as long as nothing touches the frame), everything will be turned on and you can see if it really is the switch. I carry a terminal board from an old switch with all the terminals soldered together in my sidecover for hotwiring purposes just in case. Good luck with it. If it is a bad switch there is an article out there by Mike Taglieri on how to take them apart and improve things with solder and epoxy to make it better than new.

Russ

It DOESNT have a Electric Clutch .

You can do a voltage drop test with a digital voltmeter to check out the circuits. With the switch turned on, connect one lead of the voltmeter to the positive battery terminal and the other lead to the hot side of the main switch, ideally the meter shouldn't read much more than .1 of a volt or less. .3 of a volt or more indicates a bad connection or too much resistance in the wire. Then move the lead to the output terminal of the switch, if the switch is bad it will show a reading of several volts(or more). You can test the ground side of a circuit the same way, connect one lead to the battery negative terminal and the other one to the ground connection of the component being tested.

batrider said:

...Good luck with it. If it is a bad switch there is an article out there by Mike Taglieri on how to take them apart and improve things with solder and epoxy to make it better than new.

Click to expand...

I used the method documented by Mike T a few years back, worked like a charm. Here's one link to his write up.

If you can trust your neighbors not to steal your bike, bypass the key switch and see if the problem goes away. If it does, get a new key switch. QED.

You've been working in the area of the alternator - have you checked the connections from the alternator into the rest of the loom? S'cuse me if I'm just stating the obvious.

Somebody on here threw up a picture of a switch he took apart and it was so cruddy gunky inside it's a wonder it even worked at all.
A little dissection is in order.