Topic: Dimming headlight and turnsignals

[MX267]

I have a 1975 CB550 and the headlight flickers badly, especially with the highbeam on. When I use the turn signals the right side blinks really fast, maybe normal speed, and the left side blinks super slow, sometimes it doesn't blink at all it just stay lit. Anyone have any ideas of what to check or had the same problem? When the bike is in mid to high RPM's all the turn signals work great but head light still flickers

[Alan F.]

Turn signals could have a bad internal ground, remove the 2 screws and the lens...inside you'll find a philips head screw that holds the ground wire to the housing...that's probably corroded and needs cleaning.

[Gaither]

MX

I know nothing and I hate wiring!

Alan is likely right about the ground. TT and others on here have convinced me the wiring connections on these ol' bikes get corroded [hot or ground] and then fail to "do their job".

Your problem seems similar to one I had. My headlight was out along with the left front turn sig ['77 550F]. They were both OK the night before.

The guys on here told me to run a "Popwood ground". It's cheap, easy, can't hurt anything and it worked for me.

If you want to try it, splice into a green wire which is soldered to each headlight nut in the bucket. Run the wire to the coil mounting bolt. Make sure you have shiny metal there for a good ground. Easy, and might help.

In the event it doesn't help with your problem, you'll have a good ground for a long time.

Good luck 

[MX267]

Thanks for the pointers guys. I'm gonna try to find the grounds and clean them all up. Does anyone know where the headlight is grounded too? Theres so many wires inside it I don't even know where to begin with that thing!

[Bodi]

The headlight has three wires, one (green if the headlight connector is stock) is a ground and should connect to a green wire in the main harness.
There should also be at least one green wire from the harness green wire connector to a terminal attached to a headlight bucket mounting bolt. This grounds the steering part of the bike, so that ground current does not have to go through the steering head bearings.
It's not a big deal - a days easy work or a couple of hours of concentrating - to clean every bullet connector in the wiring plus the chassis ground and multipin connectors. Well worth the trouble, and many electrical gremlins vanish afterwards.