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Starter won’t work after putting leds on

Jwc1198

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I have a 77 cb750. I installed a new headlight with a regular bulb but led turnsignals built into it along with an led tail light that also has led turn signals built into it. When I installed the headlight everything was fine the starter would spin no problem but once I put the tail light on the starter would not spin at all all I hear is the starter relay clicking. It will run if I kick it over the starter just doesn’t work. Is the tail light drawing too much power form the battery or is my starter just messed up?
 
Depends on what you did with the wiring such as where you took power from. LEDs draw LESS power not more if correct.
 
It’s not the starter it’s the battery. The battery seams to be losing power. I put on a new headlight with integrated turn signals and the tail light I put on is the same. I got a new electronic flasher relay so that way the turn signals would flash instead of staying solid. Does anything I listed sound like it would be causing this problem?
 
I’ll be honest I don’t think I have the right fuses for the headlight, main and tail light. Could that be the problem?
 
Charge the battery to full charge 12.6 volts or better use 1or2 Amp. charger. With everything turned off completely remove and touch the neg. cable to the battery if You get a slight arc do this in a low light area so You can notice it. If so start disconnecting items one at time until arc stops. I would start with tail light. Could also be bad battery. As long as fuses are not blowing that,s not it but I would install the correct fuses .
 
Use the stock fuse ratings for the fuses, which are picked for the wiring size as much as the electrical load. Classic burn-bike-to-the-ground mistake. Battery if not new needs charging like said and then use a voltmeter to check the voltage after removing the charger. Then let it sit overnight and measure again (NOT hooked up to anything). A good one will drop a little bit in voltage and then quit dropping. A bad one will continue to drop slowly past a 'set number' to keep dropping lower and lower day by day and WILL give issues, how it can whirl the starter one day and the next only click.

A good battery ranges from a super high of 12.8 volts to a low of 12.3 after the 'sit' and anything lower than that they tend to give issues then. At first removal off charging they can measure a bit higher and a fake number, that is called 'surface charge' and is what the term says, the battery is charged well enough there is a certain small amount of charge that is on the surface of the plates only, it has not had time to soak into the plates to even the plate voltage out yet. Why one should always wait like 30 minutes to an hour before reading the volts, it gives a more real world number. Right off the charger you may easily get over 13 volts which is NOT real. Then the longer overnight sit tells you whether the battery is bad due to sediment in the bottom shorting the plates out to leak power. 12 volts even is pretty much a dead one.

There a voltmeter will pay for itself pretty quick and even quicker if one gets it for free at like a Harbor Freight when they have their free giveaways. You can't work on either car or bike electrical without learning how to use one and WAY easier than most people think. Most people never need more than 2-3 of all the functions those things can do.
 
It's also possible you unplugged a ground wire somewhere. If the handlebar switch doesn't ground properly, you won't even get a click from the starter relay. I first saw that problem on a bike with black painted handle bars....

Tony
OregonMotorcycleParts.com
 
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