Turn signals and horn

'84 700

Both front turn signals quit. I'm assuming it might be a ground since that would be common to both? Also there is a ground and two hot wires for each signal. Is the extra wire for the indicator?

I took the front fairing off for the first time, it was ridiculously easy thank God. The horn never worked and I found a wire broken off one of the spade connectors. I crimped another spade on and hit the switch and it barely made a noise. Switched the leads and got the same thing. Tried a car battery and the horn blared loudly.

Got out a volt meter and have 12.5v at the battery and only 9.8v going to the horn. What might be causing the drop?

I forgot my glasses at work, that's why I asked for the color diagram.

 

Voltage drop is due to resistance, I think you are on the money with the ground issue. Horn may be finding it's ground through signals, or just a corroded connector. Keep working with meter, you will find it.

 

The PO was into the horn. Wires are the wrong color and they are zip-tied every two inches and covered with 3 wraps of electrical tape :suspicious:

The signals are those fake carbon fiber led's with 22 ga wire. It's not hard to imagine a wire is broken. Can't get to it till Monday.

 

You checked the fuse for that circuit first, right ? :numbness:

 

That's a good question. I only see 4 fuses (in the FSM) that cover multiple circuits.

I think I saw 5 inside the fuse box. One of them is "Turn Signal/ Front Rear Brake/ Horn". It wasn't burnt. Made sure with an ohm meter. The rear signals work and so do the brake lights. I assumed there is only one fuse for both front and rear signals. This dam diagram is really hard to follow without a straight edge and a magnifying glass.

 

First thing I would try is with a test light see if there is power going to the indicator, ignition on and indicator switch on. If test light proves power to the light then it is probably an earth problem, that is if you have proven that the bulb is ok. As for the horn, if it works ok off a car battery it probably means the bike battery isn't up to scratch because a horn needs good voltage to work. Blinkers also need good voltage to operate but you say it is only the front not working

 

could be dirty/corroded connecters, you will find it with your meter. yes those prints are a bitch to read

 

I'm perplexed. If I unplug the rear signal, the front will start working. They share the same connector. Working with the left side only for now. Intuition says the flasher.

 

what voltage is at the relay/flasher

 

Gonna have to cut that mess of electrical tape off the relay- dangit. Will check tonight.

 

Oh hell I hope you're taking that crap off eventually. Fake CF on something irritates the hell out of me but on older cars or bikes, it just doesn't look right at all. Well unless it's a fully race prepped MR2 or Lotus, but they don't exactly use fake crap.

 

pick up some split wire loom, will fix that mess up

 

Bit strange not convinced it is the flasher, something strange going on in there and it has nothing to do with the fake carbon fiber leds. Are you sure they are leds because leds require led compatible flasher can

 

Sherlock could be on to this 'ere problem 'ere, he could !

 

They are LED's. Probably the reason for the aftermarket flasher- stock requires more amps to trip. I have the original turn signals, I'll see if they work. The rears are led's too but a different make with 16 ga wire.

Sorry, I didn't get a chance to check the voltage at the flasher. For me, the flasher was a WAG.

 

Success! Well, for the most part.

I dug up the original signals the PO gave me, plugged one in and voila! Both front and rear left signals work in unison. I assume the right ones will act the same way.

I'm a little dissapointed I couldn't figure out what was actually going on. A turn signal shouldn't have a fucking circuit board anyway, just a hot and a ground (earth) and a lightbulb.

But I'll take it as a win :triumphant:

 

Quick question, are the front signals supposed to stay on all the time? If I plug in the O/W wire, the light stays on like a daytime running light.

The turn signal switch drawing on the wiring diagram will start to make sense if this is the case.

 

Mines an 84 750 and it has the front running lights ( indicaters)
on all the time

 

I totally agree.





She looks good naked



Had a bit of a scare, the headlight didn't work. I had pulled the fuse so I didn't drain the battery while working on it. The contacts were a little corroded so I cleaned them up and put the fuse back in. That fixed it. Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be partly sunny. I'm ready.


edit: got to thinking about why only one signal at a time worked. "Electricity follows the path of least resistance". Maybe there was less resistance to the rear signal. I don't know.

 

Flasher/blinker units use a bi-metal spring as a contact switch. When the regular bulbs are installed and you turn on the signal it creates a high current flow. That causes the bimetal spring to heat up faster on one side than the other causing the spring to bend and the contacts open up shutting off electric flow to the lights. With no electric flow, the spring cools and bends back to make contact. It does this over and over again about every 1 second.

Whenever you replace a regular bulb with a LED bulb there is not enough resistance to make the flasher work. One work-around is to install a special little resister by the LED so the flasher thinks it's a regular bulb. This is the cheaper way, but puts a good strain on the electrical system and wires.

The better work-around is to swap the flasher unit with a solid state unit. It will flash nice and even regardless of the load on the wiring.

Also, most of the time the horn won't work on a bike unless the engine is running. The horn causes a major load and will make the voltage drop way down on a non-running bike since the batteries are so small. A car battery is may times larger and won't drop voltage from a horn load.

Taking the horn button apart and cleaning the contacts can really help.

With these older bikes, it really helps to go through all the connectors, clean the contacts and add some dielectric grease. You can take apart the handle bar controls (take pictures) pretty easily. The ignition switch is another big one. Even the ground wires can be cleaned.

I hope that helps.