1990 Venture Royale Project

[ventureout]

I originally posted this in the introduction post, but was told to put it here.

 

Have a 1990 Royale that a buddy just gave me. Is in many pieces and needs lots of time and a little $$. The biggest problem right now is that I hooked the battery up to the charger and turned the key on. The only response from the bike is that the cb+suspension control unit to the right lights up, and the stereo works. Headlight doesn't come on, horn doesn't honk, nothing from the dash board (no lights, etc). I have been poking around with my multimeter and there is power going to some parts of the bike (just random connectors I have test for voltage) and to other parts, they get power for about 1 second, then it cuts off. After about 4 seconds, it comes back for a second then cuts off. Does this consistently. Have checked all the fuses that I could find and they all seem to be good. Where do I even start? Have found several wiring diagrams on here (very good from what I've seen so far), and just downloaded a service manual. Am looking at getting a service manual on ebay.

 

Where does one even start with a mess like this???

 

Update: Since I posted this originally, I hooked the battery up from my 2000 Shadow ACE, and the dashboard lit up, the horn honks, and I tapped the starter very briefly and it made noise as well. I'm planning on ordering a Yuasa YUAM6250H YTX24HL-BS Battery from Amazon for $99. Called the local cycle dealer

and they had one for $160 so decided to go the amazon route to save the $60. I look forward to any input from anyone!

 

Some pictures. Anyone know what the warning light is in the upper left hand corner? (others are self explanatory)

[Prairiehammer]

The fuse block clips are notorious for failing. The clips may APPEAR to be OK, but the corrosion and lack of "spring" in the clips result in intermittent failures and often permanent failures with substantial heat.

The indications on your bike point to the "SIGNAL" FUSE.

Using a multimeter, measure the voltage on the "in" side of the fuse by placing the probe on the crimped portion of the fuse clip. Compare to the voltage on the "out" side of the fuse, again, place the probe on the crimp. I suspect you find either a blown "signal" fuse or a substantial drop in voltage across the fuse clips and or fuse.

 

As for the red warning light: it will illuminate whenever any fault is found. The icons tell what the fault is. In your case, the icons tell us that the sidestand is down, the battery electrolyte is low (or the probe is disconnected) and that the fuel tank is nearly empty.

[Great White]

I'm going to say something simple based on your description and it's not meant to be insulting.

 

The key sort of has two "on" positions.

 

One is "ACC" where the CLASS (air controller) comes on, but not much else.

 

If you continue turning it goes to "ON" and everything powers up and the bike will run. The ON position will also turn off the CLASS controller (as long as someone has not messed with the wiring).

 

I'm going to say this is not your problem as you seem to have the dash "computer" powered up in one of your pictures. It does not in ACC, nor does the other items you mentioned (headlights, etc).

 

Saying all the stuff that works on ACC are power up and the things that are not is what leads me to mention it.

 

It's easy to miss if you're not familiar with the venture and the letters are rubbed off the key tumbler.

 

Again, not meant to be insulting, just something worth a mention based on your description.

 

The red light flashes to draw your attention to whichever fault icon is displayed on the dash. I can't exactly say what the Yamaha engineers were thinking when they put it in there, it's more of a nuisance (IMHO) than anything else. Maybe if they had included a "cancel" button for you to push/acknowledge it and turn it off until the next fault triggered it it would be worthwhile. A red led flashing away as I'm driving down the road telling me about a problem I already know about is just a major PITA. The battery one is notorious for the sensor going bad and keeping the darned thing flashing all the time. I just bypassed mine so the light would work for all the other icons but not the battery.

 

Cheers

Edited July 6, 2015 by Great White

[van avery]

You might want to use an old headlight to test for the voltage. I had a case where I had voltage everywhere I should with the VOM but the main fuse would not handle any real load. tracked it back to one of the main fuses that looked good and carried 12 Volt until I had a load on it. Good luck

[zagger]

Excellent idea to use a light to check 12V circuits on an older bike! Voltmeters need almost no electrical current to register a voltage. It is easy to be mislead into thinking a circuit is good when it actually cannot provide the current needed due to corrosion, dirt, or whatever. I'm going to try to remember that trick!

Thanks,

zag