All my negative wires are live........ regulator fail?

[TOUGEFC]

Hey guys im having a lot of electrical headaches on my project bike trying to get it running.
Ive discovered that all my negatives on my bike are live, trying to figure out why Ive been doing process of elimination and unplugging everything that's tapped into it and testing the negatives. Long story short when my voltage regulator is connected up its turning all my negatives live, but when I unplug it they return to a normal negative circuit.

Is this a faulty regulator?

Does the regulator need to be plugged in to give power to the coils? Because when I unplug it my coils lose power.....

My bike has a TCI ignition too if that's relevant

 

[mwesty]

how are you testing that?

 

[Wolfe_11B]

My thought as well

 

[TOUGEFC]

Using a circuit tester

 

[mwesty]

good. so you put one probe on the wire then one on the chassis and you get voltage?

 

[TOUGEFC]

Yeah thats correct.
Did a bit more testing and even with the regulator disconnected my negatives still give a postive reading, but its very faint. Its almost as if when the reg is plugged in its boosting the power on the negatives....

 

[mwesty]

that would be normal. your multi meter is completing the circuit. when you disconnect the reg, I would say that there would be no power going to the accessories circuit, only power coming from the alternator is to run the engine?

if all your grounds suddenly shorted to positive you would be making lots of magic smoke.

 

[TOUGEFC]

So this is normal in the pic?. The other end of the tester is clipped onto a the engine mount

 

[16VGTIDave]

Yup. Time to brush up on grade school electrical theory before you fry something expensive.

 

[arfstrom]

What bike do you have? as I went though this thread, I know Dave has a 82 Maxim, MWesty has a 79 250.

Certain bikes, are backwards, per the what ever it is (slipped my mind) Do what Dave, and westy have done, click on control panel, and find signature, put your bike info there, so someone might be able to help you. I love to delve into electrical questions, but even you must admit its is hard when the info is not there. and since I am scuba diving more than responding to questions lately. you have to admit, you have not come to the point of TMI. (to much info) ((mental note, I put extra info into my signature, so I don't have to dig for it, ie oil filter, or sparkplug size.))((mental midget)) Which is proaching a TMI foul for me.

 

[TOUGEFC]

I have a 1980 Xs400 Aussie spec. 5E8 is the code of my bike. It has the tci ignition.

Ive always been under the impression that negative wires should never have power running in them.

 

[16VGTIDave]

The electrons have to move if you want electricity. They are propelled by magic smoke through the spaces between the conductors of the wires. If you let the smoke out, the electrons stop moving and the electricity doesn't happen.

Some of the above is true, some is possibly embellished...

 

[bcware]

It might be best to visualize a simpler system.

Connect a small lightbulb directly to a battery. You will have a positive and negative wire. Take a reading on that negative wire and see what you find.

 

[arfstrom]

That reminds me of the time I was chasing electrical gremins in my turn signal wires, and I was getting readings I should not have gotten, then I discovered the reason was the power was bleeding over from the the filment of the dashboard turn signal light.

I guess the moral of my story, is to isolate as much as posssible, and start with wire quality tests. Which my memory is going fast, Resistance tests!!!! So in the headlight bucket is many connections. either disconnect everything, and attempt to find the other end. Since your bike is a 80, the popular wire diagram will be fine.

Another thing that buys you, is it will scrape new groves into the connectors, which potentially help you solve your problem, with out you even knowing which connector was the bad one.
Tobie