This bike was completely submerged not once, but twice (last time just last Sunday). I had her started within 24 hours, and changed the oil repeatedly. She was starting even better than usual, a single kick (with no priming) would do it every time. Obviously, the battery wasn't holding a charge because I'd start her long enough to stir the oil thoroughly and heat the engine a bit, then stop her to change the oil again. (Note: do not go crazy with WD-40 under the valve cover: it makes the oil look like chicken gravy and is nearly impossible to rinse out.)
I did take her for a longer spin yesterday, and noticed the turn signal, which was bad after the first flood a month ago, was nearly useless and getting worse. Nowhere did the diagrams show the location of the relay, so I was poking around in the electrical plate looking for likely suspects. I could hear it click down there every 30 seconds or so (about how often the blinker switched on or off).
The bike is DoA now. Turning the key will bring on the indicator lights and headlight, but the starter does not even engage with a click, the way it normally does when the battery is extremely low. She won't start off a kick at all (I tried several dozen), and charging the battery does no good other than to brighten the headlights/indicators.
Obviously, I screwed something up when poking around inside the electrical plate. My first guess would be the magnetic switch (probably source of the low-voltage click I'm not getting anymore) at the top of the plate, but both the FAQ here and the wiring diagram indicate it does nothing except engage the starter. It should not have prevented a kick start.
I tried the obvious step of unplugging most of the contacts and plugging them back in. Many were drenched with a clear grease, although I don't know if it was conductive grease or dielectric grease. There was easily enough goo to short every circuit on the bike in a few of the connectors, so I suspect it was dielectric grease. I wiped off the excess before plugging them back in.
I'm sort of at a loss how to proceed. The Clymer manual is useless when it comes to the wiring in and around the plate. I have the original wiring diagram that came with the bike (it's different from the wiring diagrams someone uploaded here for the 78 cb550k, although that may just be formatting).
I think I found the blinker relay in the midst of all this, but I'd rather have a bike that runs.
Just to be particularly stupid about all this, I did NOT disconnect the positive terminal of the battery while poking around, although I did make sure the ignition key was off. I made sure to have everything back the way I found it (i.e, plate bolted back in, all contacts connected, etc.) before switching the ignition on. I didn't see any sparks or get any shocks while messing around. I did hear this rather ominous "zzzt" sound when moving the plate around once or twice, but it sounded just like just river silt grating between two surfaces. There's still plenty enough of river silt left on various surfaces to explain that. (I'm cleaning the silt out wherever I come across it, but not going nuts over it yet.)
I've troubleshot breadboarded circuits of some complexity in the past, but this ain't no breadboard. It looks more like a rat's nest to me.
P.S.: I just realized I haven't tried changing the fuses yet, all of which are original equipment (and 29 years old). That's precisely the sort of idiot's suggestion I most need at this point. I hope so, at least: I doubt it is them (never had a problem with them before, and they are all well-greased), but it's a simple fix to try.
