I have a Gen-1 project that had an "always runs" condition. I only recently began its repairs. Yes, It ran fine with no ignition key in and wouldn't turn off. A quick look at the wiring diagram shows only three wires from the ign. switch; a blue (switched lighting) a red (always on 12v) going to the battery and rectifier, and a brown (switched 12v directly to the fuse box.. So I thought that the red and brown are shorted somewhere. But wiring harness is in good shape, no abrasions or melting. It runs with the plug disconnected from the ignition switch. First I inspected the plastic connector on the harness side of the ignition switch and it looks perfect, so I strip some harness around the battery since that is the part of the harness that that gets disturbed during maintenance and it contains both red and brown power wires, no shorts. Before I consider more harness stripping I test components for back feeding. With all components removed the bike is still on without ign. switch, computer or anything else. So I decide to run another wire outside the harness and snip off the brown wire, thereby jumpering in a new switched 12v and surely bypass the hidden short in the "brown" 12v switched wire. I snipped 1" from the harness ignition plug and used a temporary jumper from there to the fuse box. Problem is still there, cant turn off the power. Igniton switch isn't even on the bike now, so I snipped off the harness side of the ign. plug. Mind you, I visually checked this plug first, before doing anything on the bike. It looked perfect. Now that it is disconnected and isolated from the bike I tested for continuity between the red and brown, yes, its shorted internally somehow ! I ripped one side of the plug off with nippers to investigate and found the short. The brown and red spade connectors in the plastic plug oppose each other in the plug and since the two spades oppose each other with their barbs/tangs pointing at each other those divots for the barbs leave very little plastic between them making for an EXTREMELY thin plastic between them. Its only about 1/16" to begin with and then the divots both reduce that, it must be a few thousandths of insulating plastic. Many know how difficult it is to pull apart the gen-1's plastic connectors (they are 27 to 38 years old after all). Once I get them apart I put a little silicone grease on the plastic to aid future disconnecting. A previous owner had installed a fan switch and he tapped for the 12v from the blue (lighting) wire at the back of the harness ignition switch plug (I would have tapped 12v right at the fan temperature sensor (may as well run the fan on the fan fused circuit). He must have pulled on the red wire hard to get that plug apart and as he did so the "barb/tang" penetrated the thin plastic and connected with the tang on the brown wire. See on the pictures how much that tang is bent.
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