MZ/MuZ Riders

At the local gas station my 2001 Baghira just died on me. Nothing. It's as if someone took the battery out. When I had the seat off to check the fuses, it came to life for some reason.

Then a few miles down the road he died again. This time I could not fix the problem, after a few obvious checks:

All fuses okay including the main one (15A).
Battery has full charge (>12V)
Battery connections fine.
Wiring in general seem fine, didn't see anything obviously loose.
Fiddled with the kill switch, made sure it was in the 'on' position, no help.

In the end I had to call AMA, and get me trailered the whole two miles home.

But now I'm stuck with a dead Baghira in the garage, a yearning to ride, and lots of sunny weather going to waste. This SUCKS!

So, I need to figure out my problem, fast

Someone at the AMA Vintage Days of Mid Ohio suggested it could be my regulator. If that has gone bad, then the battery wouldn't charge, and it would mean an eventual, not sudden death.

Has anyone else had this problem

Worst case scenario, I have to go over all the wiring to figure out what's up, but without a wiring diagram, I don't really now where to start. My owner's manual doesn't have any wiring diagram in it.
The event at the gas station tends to suggest a loose wire of some kind.

Is there someone with a wiring diagram (for a 2001) or further suggestions?

Thanks.

I mentioned this in the other electrical thread, but I'd revisit the starter/kill switch area if I were you. A couple of times my Baggy has had the same symptoms, and the culprit was a corroded/sloppy connection in the handlebar switch assembly. One of those instances, the short/bad connection was blowing fuses, but the other time it was just dead (but w/a strong battery).

It's pretty easy to disassemble, clean out, and reassemble. You might want to start there just to eliminate the easy stuff. Who knows, you might get lucky!

Good luck.

have you checked the side stand switch , sorry for stating the obviouse but its sometimes overlooked

Thanks for those two suggestions.

I did check the starter/kill switch on the handlebar, opened it up, looked perfectly clean inside, no dirt or corrostion, so I figure that can't be it. I should check it with a voltmeter just in case.

The sidestand switch seems fine, however with the ignition key in the 'on' position, the bike in neutral, at least the neutral light should come on. I also expect the lights to come on.

I've got both sidepanels off and doing a cleaning and wiring inspection so far has not revealed anything amiss.

I wonder what else it could be. I'd like to get this figured out because I do want to go riding.

Next step would be to take the tank off.

Another thing, the battery is holding its charge. So, there isn't some short or drain on the battery, which is good.

The only thing electronic on this bike, AFAIK, is the electronic ignition box, but I can't imagine that going bad would cause nothing to go on at all.

If the rectifier has gone bad, that's only part of the charging circuit, so that going bad would mean a slow and eventually death, not the symptoms I'm getting.

on your electrical drawing look for relay 30 ( its relay 19 on a 125cc drawing)

there is a red/white wire and a red/black wire
both should have power with the key on (relay closed)
dave

DAVID THOMPSON wrote:on your electrical drawing look for relay 30 ( its relay 19 on a 125cc drawing)

there is a red/white wire and a red/black wire
both should have power with the key on (relay closed)
dave

Sounds like a good check. Where is this relay located (on most bikes?) under the seat? I'll make the check and get back to you.
There's a realy under the seat, but not with those color of wires. I'll use a probe to see where it leads.

Any idea what this relay is for? It seems strange to have a relay between the ignition, then everything else electrical on the bike.

A wiring diagram for my MZ Baghira would be most helpful at this stage.

read here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2085&p=12180#p12180
dave
will try to get you a picture of relay on my traveller it may help

DAVID THOMPSON wrote:read here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2085&p=12180#p12180
dave
will try to get you a picture of relay on my traveller it may help

Thanks for the diagrams. I started looking at the wiring in detail and here is what I found.

The battery is still fully charged, so there is no drain when the bike is off. I could check to see if it will drain with the bike on. instead I decided to follow the wiring.

The 12V seems to split to the fuse bank, all are getting 12V except the flasher circuit which makes sense as that is relay driven.

But the problem may be a gold canister (relay?) marked 'Hitachi MS5D-361'. Both leads Red/White and Blue/White wires seem to be connected to ground. That doesn't make any sense, does it?
The big fat 12V wire, opposite to that is a big fat wire that is ground. That secondary wire to ground has got some corrosion on the bolt, which is what I"m used to seeing on ground wires that haven't been looked at in a while.

At this stage I need a full wiring diagram for the MZ Baghira, which I don't have.

So, it seems this gold Hitachi canister is no good. Is it the starter relay? If so, that still doesn't explain why my bike has NO POWER at all to anything. I checked the starter/kill switch and there is no voltage getting to that so I know the problem has to occur before that.

** EDIT ** Got the wiring diagram, thanks . Looks like a lot of work ahead of me.

Baghira wiring diagram ........http://andyashton.com/mz/MZWiring.pdf good luck

Thanks to the wiring diagram, I was able to trace the problem easily enough to the ignition switch. It's an internal problem to that, because in fact, I jiggled the wire leading up into the module and the lights came on, and I was even able to start the bike. Then by releasing the wire, everything went off again. I have not been able to get everything on again by jiggling the wires, so I figure inside there must be loose contacts. By jiggling the wire, I can get the parking light to come on which is likely a separate circuit.

Anyway, I need to take the ignition switch apart to see what's up. Anyone had one of these apart before? Here's something I found on the BMW F650 forum which seems to use the same ignition.

http://faq.f650.com/FAQs/IgnitionSwitchFAQ.htm

The instructions are at the bottom on how to fix this problem. There are two Philips screws, as the article says, hard to get at, which hold the bottom (electrical connections) part to the top (key tumbler unit). The article suggests you can buy the bottom part separately or solder the wires back into position which is what I will attempt to do. There is even a photo of what I am getting into:



It seems The bottom part snaps into position, I shouldn't even need to access the Philips screws.

Getting the ignition lock out of the top triple clamp seems like an involved process that I don't really want to attempt but I shouldn't have to.

I'm glad this problem happened 2 miles from home, and not on a major trip.

Just wanted to let everyone know that my repair had a happy ending and I'm now back on my Baghira.

As illustrated above, the ignition wires require a fine tip soldering iron. A friend of mine came by last Friday to help me with that, so with the two of us, we were able to get the wires back into position.

I ended up using the spare (unused) holes for the ignition wires as they were clean and not messed up from my previous botched job.

Hopefully this will hold for a good while as I am planning a trip to Maine, leaving next week.

Though I am carrying a alligator clip and screwdriver just in case. The alligator clip allows you to effectively hot wire them together, should they break loose once again.