Q: I’ve recently bought a Bajaj Pulsar UG3. After owning the bike for only a few days the starter relay began to make a buzzing sound, when I pressed the starter button, and then all the electrics would go dead.
But when I pulled in the clutch everything seemed to come right, so I removed the switch at the clutch lever and it seemed to sort out the problem.
Lately though the electric starter doesn’t work at all and the hooters (two of them), stay on all the time, so I had to disconnect them as well.
The battery charging voltage is only 10-11 volts, which seems to be a bit low. And the LCD instrument back light is also intermittently low.
Do you have any ideas on what these electrical problems could be because the bike is mechanically fine?
Idreesabed
A: First of all the charging voltage, if you’ve checked correctly, is indeed too low. It should be around 14 volts with the bike revving at 3,000rpm. So you might have a battery or charging system fault there.
As far as the other faults (many), it might pay to check out both of the switch clusters each side of the handlebars to see if they’re corroded or perhaps have a ‘pinched’ wire somewhere that could cause a dead short onto the handlebars?
I would also check the multi-plug connector that goes onto the back of the instrument pod to see if that’s corroded or broken and therefore causing problems in that area as well. Did you find the bike in the ocean?
It’s hard to answer these questions because I haven’t seen the condition of the bike but if it were I, I’d disconnect every wire/ connector on the bike, clean them up, and make sure nothing electrical is directly ‘touching’ the frame. Try that?
