Topic: Wiring hell

[grumpy]

OK, here’s a good one.

I installed new bars and so had to go into the bucket and reconnect all the wires from the HB controls. Now the blinkers don’t work correctly.
Here’s what I get:

With the headlight on …

The left rear blinker doesn’t work at all (checked with a known-good bulb)
The left front blinker is fine as is the running light.
The right side works normally.

BUT… and here’s the good part…

with the headlight OFF I get this:

The left side works as above.
Activating the right blinker makes BOTH fronts and the right rear blink.

I octuple checked the following:
Continuity of the orange wire going from the bucket back to the rear blinker.
The orange wire was plugged into the other orange wires in the bucket.
The orange striped wires are all connected
The light blue and light blue striped wires are all connected to their like colored counterparts.
The headlight hi beam terminal is connected to the blue wire
The HL lo beam goes to white.
Grey goes to grey
Green goes to green.


WHAT THE HELL??!!!!!!!!!!!!??!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cruzin69]

Maybe not earthing properly? I think there is an earth off the blinker stem in the headlight bucket? may have got loose or fallen off??

[percolate]

You say you checked for continuity.... that's good but that only ensures that in that run of wire electrons will flow from one end of it to the other if there's a voltage present.

You really need to find and follow the voltage. Find where it's present and systematically work your way down stream and you should be able to track down your problem. You have a multimeter I presume? I would start up in the headlight bucket and find a voltage and work your way back towards the bulb. You should be able to isolate where the system breaks down. Then the problem should be obvious, right? That's what I often find with troubles like this - super frustrating and baffling until I figure it out and then it seems so obvious. (I recall when I figured out that the black wires were unfused +12v things made a whole lot more sense. All other DC systems I'd worked on use black as ground.)

Do you have a CORRECT wiring diagram for your bike? I emphasize correct cause I was working from a known incorrect diagram and then from a slightly less incorrect but still not correct diagram and had a heck of a time sorting things out on my bike. But I seem to fuzzily remember a similar symptom to yours regarding anomalous both-side blinkings until I got everything hooked up actually correctly, not 'my' correctly. The diagram at least got me in the ballpark and multimeter and considerations got me the rest of the way.

Also maybe disconnecting everything in the headlight bucket and reconnecting it one bit at a time and confirming it works as you go can help trace the problem.

Hope this helps and good luck!

[millerza]

does your bike have only one blinker indicator? If so, it should have a diode to prevent back feed to the side you dont want to blink, might look in this area.

[grumpy]

Also maybe disconnecting everything in the headlight bucket and reconnecting it one bit at a time and confirming it works as you go can help trace the problem.

Yep. That's what I did. Tested each wire/light as I hooked them up. I also labeled each wire's function as I went.

It works well now.

I still have no clue what was wrong, though.