Extra relay?

[Justin B.]

I seem to have an "extra" relay under the tank.  For those of you with hazard flashers and/or factory heated grips maybe you can confirm this relay is used for one of those accessories.  The relay is one of the small square 4 terminal Bosch relays that is identical to the lighting relay.  Tracing through the "wiring diagram according to Haynes" gives no hint as to what this relay might be for.

This is not a case of my curiosity getting the best of me (we all know what to the kat...) but the circuit feeding this dang thing is screwed up and the relay stays energized all of the time - even with key off.  I never noticed it until this morning when it was relatively quiet outside when I was working on it and I heard a click just as soon as I connected the negative battery terminal and traced it to this relay.  No wonder the new Gruber battery was always dead and I almost feel bad for e-mailing them a scathing rant about their crappy batteries!  

Sooo, I currently have the relay removed as nothing "important" quit when I removed it and now the battery won't keep getting sucked dry.

[Bob_Roller]

Looking at the wiring diagram, (which I did a lot of today, see my update about my head light not working !!!!), it looks like it is a buzzer relay, that works with the turn directionals.

If you ever get to the ignition switch, there should be a push on solderless terminal with two green/black wires, remove it, and your problem should go away.

[Justin B.]

Which wiring diagram are you looking at?  The diagram in the Haynes book that covers an '82 LS only shows 3 relays (as far as I can see) - lighting, starter, and turn signal relays.  I'll check out the ignition switch tomorrow...

[Bob_Roller]

I'm working off of the wiring diagram that came in the owners manual, photocopied it and blew it up to 8.5 inches by 17 inches, works good, except the pin numbers at the various components got 'washed out'.

[Justin B.]

I'll have to see if the '84 manual I have covers this as the Haynes didn't.  I sometimes hate the Haynes book, I finally had enough of it on my Volvo and finally paid the extra money for the Bentley manual.

[donbmw]

When I installed the BMW heated grip kit it did not have any relays installed.

Don

[Justin B.]

Thanks, Don, if yours was a factory set then I can rule out that application.  Bob's theory about it working with the buzzer is interesting and I'll check out the ignition switch wiring tomorrow but I didn't think the R65 came with the TS beeper after the 1980 model year and this is a 1982 LS...

[Bob_Roller]

Justin,

If you can see the wire colors that go into the plastic socket assembly that the relay plugs into, it would probably make quick work of identifying the use for the relay.

Who knows what previous owners may have installed on the bike before you got it.

[Justin B.]

It is sitting right next to the "lighting relay" and everything I can see of the harness and socket looks bone-stock factory!  It is the same part number as the lighting relay, just a simple SPST NO relay.  I'll take a look at those wires a well as those on the ignition switch.  It's no big deal as there is no chance of this thing getting ridden in the near future but it did start right up this morning, even with wonky carbs.  I dumped about a cup of Berrymans B-12 into the crankcase and will periodically run it over the next few days to see if I can get the oil rings to free up and stop it from turning into a "skeeter-killer" after the engine warms up.  If not, I guess I'll have to save my pennies for some gasgets and pull the jugs...

[nhmaf]

From your description, I don't have one of those relays on my '82 LS either.   While it does sound like it could be the turn signal buzzer relay, I am also quite sure these were not standard on the 81-after bikes.   Perhaps there might have been a PO who was installing heated grips or 4-way flashers (or possibly a horn relay for dual Fiamms) and later
removed the the device and some of the wiring ?

[Chris_in_BC]

Disconnect the power feed to the relay in question and see if anything stops working  :-/
Chris

[Justin B.]

Chris, I totally pulled the relay and as far as I can tell everything still works except the horn but I don't think the single round horn uses a relay.  Turn signals, tail light, and brake lights seem to function normally.  I don't know about the headlight as it had been smashed and I have not found a "reasonably priced" replacement as of yet.

[Justin B.]

I just love POs...  Bob was on the right track with the grn/blk wires.  Someone had attached the GRN/VIO wire to one of the 30 terminals (which is hot all the time) and the two GRN/BLK wires to the 56 termninal.  This was putting a hot to the lighting relay all of the time and if the headlight would not have been smashed out I would have seen that the headlight was on all the time.  I verified this by removing the smashed bits and plugging in a bulb.  The other relay apparently belongs to the hazard-flasher option as tracing the wiring from this relay revealed it ended in a plug that would mate up with the 4-way flasher switch.

Thanks for kicking me in the right direction, Bob.  I guess one nice thing is that I now know what every relay under the tank on this particular bike is now!

[Bob_Roller]

If I hadn't been into the wiring like I was yesterday, I probably couldn't have given you any help in this area.

At least you got I figured out !

So I guess the generic AGM battery is not the problem.

[Justin B.]

The battery was probably fine, for a while.  I think that keeping it sucked down for over a year must have damaged it internally as it will no longer take a full charge.  I did keep a float charger on it but the energized circuit must have been sucking out more juice than the float charger put in.  I am going to try to charge the battery again, though.

These two wires, though, are still a mystery to me as I looked at the 79-80 diagram which showed the buzzer relay but there are no GRN/BLK wires going to the ignition switch!  I guess I'll just leave them unhooked.