Topic: Front signal lights

[eldar]

Well for a while I have been monkeying with my front signal lights.  There were never too bright and blinked very weird. Pull off the lens and here only 1 filament lights up and the other does nothing.  I look in my clymers and it looks like the front lights are 3 wire. I got mine from ebay a couple years ago since they were cheap and I do not have a problem tossing them if I need to. They are TWO wire lights like my rear lights.

Are they supposed to be 3 wire like what it shows in the book? With the tests I have done, it sure seems like it.

[mikedialect]

Well for a while I have been monkeying with my front signal lights.  There were never too bright and blinked very weird. Pull off the lens and here only 1 filament lights up and the other does nothing.  I look in my clymers and it looks like the front lights are 3 wire. I got mine from ebay a couple years ago since they were cheap and I do not have a problem tossing them if I need to. They are TWO wire lights like my rear lights.

Are they supposed to be 3 wire like what it shows in the book? With the tests I have done, it sure seems like it.

Running lights & blinkers with the 3 wires. I had 2 wire at first, but those running lights on my F2 are great at night! An added element of visibility

[seaweb11]

I have 2 wire dual filiment bulbs in a couple of bikes. 1 running 1 turn.
The fact that they are bolted to the bike is the ground the other 2......1  should go to the key on power for running lights the other goes to the signal conection. Sounds like your turn sig light is plugged into a ground by accident "that's why it won't work" and your running light wire is connected to the signal  . That might cause some issues?
To clarify....your signal light is dimmer than you want because it is the running light filliment and your brighter filliment is not connected to the sig curcuit, it's probably on a "green" ground.  Does that make sence? "Reversed and connected wrong.

TT just finished helping me with my K8 signals and tail curcuit here http://www.sohc4.us/forums/index.php?topic=22449.0
I believe if you read all 3 pages you will be able to sort it out. And it was written for the color impared

Good luck, I will keep an eye on your thread.

[eldar]

Well I am not color blind but the clymer is pretty crappy in print quality when it comes to any pics or diagrams.

See what I get right now is this. The bulb has 2 filaments. The upper and lower in respect to the base of the bulb. The upper one turns on and stays on except when I hit my turn switch, then it blinks on and off. The lower does nothing and will not do anything unless I connect a wire from ANY ground, even the fork covers the signals are mounted to, to the wire that goes to the part of the mount that touches the outside copper base on the light. THEN the lower filament comes on and the upper appears to go out but it is hard to tell since that lower filament is so bright.    Maybe I am using the wrong connections or maybe I have a bad ground but my clymer seems to show 3 wires.
orange, orange/white, and dark green on the left.
blue, blue/white, and dark green for the right. 

Maybe if someone has a clearer diagram from the honda manual or a color one, I am sure I can get things connected right then or at least know the answer to the question.

As for everything else, all works perfect as far as electrical goes. Rear turn lights are fine. Just for FYI, they are 2 wire lights too. SO that is part of why I wonder.

[seaweb11]

Did you read the thread I put up completely?

I think you will find the answer there,

[eldar]

I will today. It was midnight and I was already late for crashing out! Too bushed to read that much

[eldar]

Well I read it and I dont know if it is the same thing I have. I dont think so. All my contacts seem to be good as in all lights come on and indicator lights work. I removed the turn signal buzzer to "save weight"!

However there is a wiring diagram on the site here and while not really bike specific, it showed on 2 wires on the front lights.  I must say that I am thinking of cutting off all the old connectors and soldering some new ones on that are smaller!

[Bodi]

The dim filamentss should come on with the ignition until you switch the turn signal on, then the dim filament on the side you're signalling goes off and the bright filament on that side should flash.
It sounds like you have no ground and have the lamp wires mixed up. The bright filaments' wires should go to orange and light blue in the headlight shell (orange = left and lt. blue = right "I think" but may be vice-versa), the dim filament wires should go to orange with a white stripe and light blue with a white stripe. I think the whole lighting and instrument assembly is on a rubber shock mounting and needs a ground wire, the lamp sockets themselves are usually in a rubber sleeve in the signal housings and have a ground connection in there somewhere too but if you ground the mounting tube and the lights work properly you just have to connect the ground wire for the assembly if it's still there somewhere or make a new ground wire if it isn't.
It isn't unusual for what you describe to happen when there's no proper" ground - the power goes through both filaments back to whatever ground may be there. Since one filament is much brighter (lower resistance) than the other, with these lamps the dimmer filament lights dimmer than normal and the bright one gets hot but not hot enough to glow much.

[eldar]

I think it is the ground wire that is missing. I looked at the honda manual and it shows a green wire from each lamp also. I still think it might be the lamps. I think I get the bright filament when I connect the ground with INSIDE the housing to the fork cover, but I tried so much I cant quite remember.

The light blue and orange wires are connected correctly. The other ones with the white, I am not quite as sure about.

Also, when I connect that ground, the bright one comes on. I messed with so much yesterday I cant remember everything.

So what I need to figure out is what wires the orange/white and the blue/white connect to in the shell. Then make the ground.

But that was a good help there Bodi.