Strange mix of electrical problems - Help!

[jhurls]

Hello all,
I have a 2003 XB9S Lightning that died on my ride home the other day. There is a strange mix of symptoms that my bike has that I'm having a tough time pinpointing the problem. I hope someone can help!

When I turn the key, here's what works/doesn't work:
Works:
1. Horn
2. Instrument cluster
3. Turn signals
4. Brake light, but only for front brake

Doesn't work:
1. Headlights (both high/low and the dashboard high beam indicator)
2. Ignition/Starter (no clicking, no anything...)
3. Engine kill switch
4. Brake light, rear brake
5. ECM (doesn't appear to be powered, tried connecting it to my laptop and it wasn't recognized)

The battery is relatively new and lives on a charger every night.
The bike died on while I was accelerating about 5 minutes after starting it.
I checked the fuses and they all look good.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

John

[Shawns]

Check ignition switch wiring.

[user_deleted]

what shawn said plus realize that the on/off red-run rocker switch controls alot of circuitry on these XB's. it must be fully functional. repair yours....check all connections behind the factory fly-screen, then consider replacing your 3 relays contained in fuse box. replacing 1 at a time reveals the faulty relay.

[jhurls]

Thanks for the tips. I didn't have much time to work on the bike tonight, but I did swap the ignition and starter relay (testing that the ignition relay was the bad one) but there wasn't any change. I'll be doing more testing in the next day or two.

[07Bolt]

The bike died on while I was accelerating about 5 minutes after starting it.

This is a typical symptom of your regulator going bad. 03 thru 07 XB's had/have a outdated regulator. An updated regulator kit was issued for 08 and up XB's. It appeared the flat-pin style of the regulator was experiencing intermittent arcing/burning. So, they upgraded to a round pin-style plug and issued a recall with a "Upgrade Package" including the round-pin style regulator plug replacement. I found some at buellparts.net a while back but some have found similar plugs from auto applications that remedy the situation as well.

[jhurls]

Thanks for all of the tips guys! I got the bike back up and running, it turned out to be a relay, the 'key switch' relay. I switched the relays around and all of a sudden more of the systems started working. Of course it was the one relay that I didn't check!

Luckily they had these at my local AutoZone, so I bought one to test it out... Success!!

Thanks again!

-John