Startus interruptus fix 2

Kiwi_Roy wrote:

You should always disconnect the ground wire on the battery before doing any work. You can touch the negative terminal to ground as many times as you like, nothing happens but touch the positive to ground and you get a shower of sparks at best.

Or a melted spanner or a F great bruise on your head where you jumped back and hit the garage wall.

Kiwi Roy is right

But - i hate manuals patronising me and        
Guzzi owners need to face up to Darwin  
 

Its time you guys stopped trying to ground the battery out of sight under the starter cover, that's never been a good idea, put the ground wire under a decent size bolt for a start say an 8mm holding the gearbox to the engine or perhaps split it between a couple of the 6mm bolts that fasten the gearbox cover on. File or scrape the paint off and grease it to ward off corrosion.
If any of you have a V7 you will see a large lug right at the top of the gearbox, it has a bunch of wires jammed into a single lug, it struck me that this lug could be prone to corrosion so I unwrapped it and sweated the wires into place but in hind site I would have just melted some grease or Vaseline into the wires to protect the metal.
As for Startus Interruptus fix, I think from now on I will talk all owners into adding a dedicated relay down near the starter, this entails using the original wiring to switch the new relay coil. no changes are made to the OEM wiring so its easier to explain and harder to screw up. A live feed for the relay 30 terminal can be picked up from the large live solenoid post so there are no additional wires jammed under the battery post. The live wire needs to be fused by a 20 Amp fuse, one of those ones sold with just a few inches of wire should reach.
Over on VII Lemans they seem to favour adding the new start , relay under the seat with the other 5, this makes for an elegant solution and as long as 16AWG  (1.5mm) is used you can still power it from the starter solenoid with little Voltage drop.
I have been waiting for the starter on my V7 to fail, it draws globs of current through the ignition switch, of course it may be that the conditions its kept under, never left out in the weather, I don't think it has the same wimpy wires but its essentially the same switch, just without so many contacts but it does flex back and forth with the steering.

lcjohnny wrote:

Buellbloke wrote:

you shouldnt have an unused hole up there
Thats the rear airbox mount, with the chrome nut removed there aint no budging it unless I imagine one loosens the whole box up.
I notice that one could just use the bracket on the relay and drill a similar hole at the bottom centre/right on the engine mount just above the fold/brace.

Interesting - must be two airbox types as mine has no sign of a boss or bulge to take that mounting.  If mine was like that i would use a 'P' shaped bracket which anchored on the outside under that dome nut (did they used to be called acorn nuts or is that my memory prob?) then dropped back behind the frame tube to hang the relay below. if it is steel and double (like i did) the chance of fatigue failure is negligable.

I didn't bother to disconnect the battery earth as i find undoing the nut carefully is less of a fiddle than re-setting the clock  !

"the chance of fatigue failure is negligable" is said without any scentific back up... and is an open invitation to a put down by any metallurgist out there...

Back to the top where it belongs
Well well I dont imagine you will see or actually feel what you think is a mount.
There are two curved recesses in the airbox right opposite that chrome bolt or in your case hole.
Two stand offs (plastic bush fitted to bolt) fit in there to ensure the airbox sits in the right position at the correct height.
They could be a f*cker to refit but arent, maybe yours are missing

As a side note to your Startus Interuptus fix Johnny, mate who's yellow 1100 he still has and luvs has my old Motobatt battery, even with volts as low as 11.7 thing still fires up with your fix fitted, which just goes to show its the ultimate fix

Just (after 45K miles & 10 years of uninterruptus joy) decided to do this mod rather than messing around with existing relays. Anyway the point is....the airbox support (that is a blank on Jons bike) is easily removed; isn't even connected to the airbox (it's a 'holding up bumper'); and most importantly will easily allow a bracket to be fitted between it and the frame because it's nowhere near touching airbox or anything at back.

So whilst I was initially thinking to just lie the relay under the seat & run slightly longer wiring just for the solenoid 'new relay' live feed (earth could be short to nearby earth point; solenoid old feed could be pulled across from relays instead of back up from starter; battery live from battery or similar)....I couldn't resist the opportunity to make a bracket ....everyone loves making brackets (especially out of Brass sheet) !.

Here's pics just to show the 'airbox bolt' isn't actually; & thanks again to Jon for the idea and giving me some guidance on this.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

May post again when i get wiring done (currently cleaning the solenoid)

All done, starts great. I pulled 12V red live up through the existing cable boot & brought other wires behind the starter, soldered the females relay connections in position, plugged it all together & then cable tied up the wiring....total cost £16 (I already had brass sheet in stock).

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]