Dead R65

[Kauaibill]

Hi everyone.. I have a 1979R 65 that has been running pretty nicely for quite a while but suddenly died.. There is absolutely zero power when I turn the ignition switch on…
I checked what I think are the usual suspects batteries good.. the fuses are OK.. and the ground wire to the coil bracket seems to be solid..
I’m not a great mechanic so I need a little help trying to figure this one out..
Where I live here, there are no mechanics that can help me..!
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Aloha from Bill

[melville]

Look at the red wires that meet under the starter relay. One of them may have intermittent connection.

Basically BMW feeds the whole bike through the starter relay. One red wire comes in with power and the other one goes on to power everything in the headlight. The wires go to separate, but connected, #30 spades on the relay.

I had to have my son bring the truck 70 miles to rescue me a couple years ago and was vexed by things until I found the bad connection under the starter relay. It was totally a "running great and then NOTHING" incident.

[Kauaibill]

Thanks Mel.. I’ll take a look at it and I’ll let you know how it works out..

[Kauaibill]

Hi Mel .. thank you so much for your expertise.. It turned out to be a break in the hot wire that goes up through the steering yoke area. I ended up bypassing that area with a new wire and now everything works..!
You steered me in the right direction from the starter relay so thanks so much for that..
I’m totally stoked to be back on the road again and cruising the Beautiful roads of Kauai..!
Many thanks, Mel

[Rob Frankham]

A bit late now... but for what it's worth, the arrangement described above (i.e. all of the current passing through the starter relay) doesn't apply to the R45/R65 models, the R80LS or the monoshock models. On these models, the battery power to the starter relay is fed via a spur from the main power feed wire.

Pretty sure the same goes for the late GS models and the R but not sure about the early G/S models and don't have a wiring diagram to hand.

Rob