Topic: Lighting problem

[fidlysticks]

Hi everyone. I'm trying to get my 74 cb750 on the road, and the only problem I seem to have left is my lighting. I swapped out  the handlebars for some club mans, ans after that the headlight quit working, and none of my turn signals work any more. Also I lost the dummy lights. The store was out of multimeters when I went by, so I've been contenting myself with checking and cleaning my connections, and in doing so got the neutral light to come back, and the annoying sound that's supposed to remind you that you turned on the turn signal for the right side(always had the light noise) but still no lights. I do have my brake, and rear running light. Is there one spot where all that lighting wiring goes through that I'm missing? The wiring for the starter button did get messed up a bit with the swapping out causing it to run the starter motor constantly, but I managed to move the wires somewhat and now it behaves. I've tried looking at what I might have messed up in the controls, but aside from possible just not knowing what I'm looking due to being unfamiliar with the parts, they seem good.
Checked fuses, and they were good. It's my first bike, and as such any help would be especially appreciated.

[Hush]

If the 750 is like most big Hondas then you can just about bet the problem is a loose connection in the headlight bucket.
I found my fault by turning the lights to on and jiggling the mass of wires inside the headlight bucket, unfortunately to do this you have to take the headlight system out ( support it from a roof beam on a bungy, that worked for me).
Possibly when you changed bars over you inadvertantly pulled some of the wiring up from the bucket.....have fun.

[fidlysticks]

I've been jiggling wires for days, and I'll probably jiggle some more tomorrow. Jiggling is all I have left.

[Hush]

If you have the main light off, just use some spare wires to check that it is actually not blowen by earthing the chrome surround onto the neg battery terminal and testing the blue wire and white wire onto the positive (I'm guessing here that 750 and my 650 have fairly similar wiring codes).
If the main beam lights then you can start tracing the lack of power from the switch back.
These new bars, are they earthed onto the frame?
Just a thought as some new bars are like rubber mounted and maybe you need an earth at the bars?
My big problem with my head light turned out to be one of the many many green earth wires behind the headlight, I pulled every one and gave it a quick scratch on some sand paper then refitted it and somehow it started working again.

[troppo]

For the male ends of the wiring plugs get a little steel wool and use that to twist aroung the plug, easier than trying to hold it and rub with sandpaper. You even get to keep your fingerprints lol

[Hush]

aw Troppo it's no fun when you tell em how to do it properly, my way he got a free manicure and his lights working.

[gerhed]

If this is a cafe, toss the turn signals, and wire the the headlight and tail directly off the battery (fused).
Put a 25 watt dome light bulb, in the headlight and use the kick starter.
This a prescription not a solution, of course.

[KeithB]

Get yourself an 12 auto bulb and solder a couple of wires in it with clips on the end.
You can use this to test where power should be without holding on to 2 meter leads and trying to flip switches and such.
Get a schematic of the electrical system.
Just take it slow and make a list of of the wire colours as you test them.
Wiring isn't as hard as it looks....
Ground (green) wires are usually the problem.