Wilsons Sandbox

Well Steve, that sounds like an interesting problem. I rebuilt my harness all day yesterday. What a chore. Of course I upgraded all the high current lines to 12ga wire, and I'll be running relays off the main line for my 210 watts of illumination devices. That way I don't have to be running all that current through a bunch of connectors and up on the handlebars, the current through the connectors will be low as they are only powering a relay. Ok Steve, you have one of a couple problems that has occurred. Is the brake light on with the key off? If yes then it's possible that BLUE is crossed with WHITE. BLUE is the Brake Light wire and WHITE is your "Always Hot" wire. Get a continuity tester. I use a multi-meter with a beeper for continuity, very handy. Ok your problem is in the harness. You have eliminated the switches so lets move on. KEY OFF - Connect the tester to the BLUE wire at the rear connector, connect the other end of the tester to the RED/WHITE wire. This would determine if the BLUE and RED/WHITE are crossed. Check between the blue wire and the Positive terminal on the battery, if there is continuity then you have a cross between the BLUE and WHITE wires. OK with this step you determine if the short is between BLUE and the RED/WHITE or the WHITE wire. There is one other scenario and that is that the RED/WHITE is crossed with the WHITE AND the BLUE wires. This would be the case if the Key if OFF and both filaments are lit. 1) Go get two rolls of electrical tape, a few razor blades, large wire ties, a six pack of beer and clear a couple of hours from the Honey Do schedule. 2) Start at the rear connector and carefully slit the electrical tape on the harness. You are going to separate the BLUE wire from the harness and inspect it very carefully, you also want to separate the RED/WHITE or WHITE wires from the harness, which ever you determined that the cross is between. You won't hit the WHITE wire until you get to the branch that goes to the Reg/Rectifier. 3) Every 4-6 inches inspect and then bundle what you have just inspected, don't re-wrap the entire bundle, you may need access later and you don't want to cut off what you just wrapped. Just place a couple of windings every 4-6 inches. Bundle the branches though so that the position is maintained. 4) Keep going down the harness until you find the cross between the wires that are suspect. If you find potential problems, just wrap them better and keep moving. 5) When you get to branches in the line, inspect where everything meets really well. Don't go down a branch unless it has a BLUE wire in it. 6) As you approach the triple clamp, it'll get harder soon. My recommendation is to actually remove the harness from the bike and work in a comfortable chair. It'll save your back, you won't get tired and irritated as fast either. 7) You should have found it by the time you get to the five last branches since the BLUE wire splits from the harness and is not met with the WHITE or the RED/WHITE ever again. 8) If after going through the harness down two beers consecutively in a short period of time. 9) Get 6 feet of BLUE 14-16 gage wire, get a soldering iron, shrink tubing, solder/flux, wire strippers and another 6 pack, (should be ready for one by now). 10) Clip the blue wire at the rear connector, leave yourself a couple of inches to work with. Strip it back at the connector end, strip your 6' piece (don't forget to slide on some shrink tube (1")) and solder the stripped ends together. 11) Now move up to harness to where the rear brake switch is. There is a BLUE pig tail for the rear brake switch wire. Take that pig tail and cut it off the blue wire in the original harness. 12) Lay your NEW BLUE wire along the harness and tape it in place to hold it's location. 13) Now you need to do an in-line splice, I prefer solder connections, but you could use a Scotch-Lock if you want. Strip away about 1/2" of the new BLUE wire at the place that the old pig-tail was. Then strip the pig-tail back about 3/4". Split the strands of the new BLUE wire at the stripped region. Feed the pig-tail end through and wrap the pigtail around the stripped new BLUE wire. What you are doing is creating a wrapped mechanical splice, now solder up the whole "T" and wrap it with electrical tape, really Well. 14) OK So now you have a blue wire that is connected to a switch. KEY ON - is the brake light on? NO... Good... hit the rear brake, does it come on? YES... Good, but you're not done yet. 15) Now continue laying your new BLUE wire up the harness, all the way up to the branch that feeds the handle bar front brake light switch. Go to the connector, cut off the old BLUE wire and splice in your NEW BLUE wire just like you did at the most rearward connector. Don't forget the shrink wrap. 16) KEY ON - brake light on? NO .. good... hit the front Brake... Brake light on? YESSSSS... you have solved your problem. 17) Wrap your harness back up and re-install it. If that didn't solve your problem then you need to look for another combination of wires BLUE and ? that is causing this. Some notes on working with the harness off the bike and testing as you go along. You'll need to connect the rear connector, you'll need to connect the WHITE pig-tail at the battery and you'll need to connect the ignition switch connector up front as well as the front brake light/engine on/off connector. That's all you should need. There are probably a bunch of ways to solve/find the problem. I approach the harness as methodically as possible. First you have to find which wires are crossed, then you have to find where they are crossed and fix it. When all else fails, junk the stock harness and build your own fix. There aren't any safety issues with my fix. It is simply the replacement of one wire for another. I don't know why your head lights aren't lasting. Perhaps the Regulator switch will help that. Perhaps another post. Good Luck. LaterZ Dash At 04:29 PM 6/25/2000 -0300, spye@... wrote:

>O.k. Listers, >Who's the experts on wiring cause i'm stumped! My A7 seems to be burning out >headlight bulbs at an alarming rate. Couple of days ago I noticed the brake >light is on all the time so I assumed the problem was related. >Decided to swap out the Regulator/Rectifier and while doing so I noticed >brake light on full time even under battery power. >Disconnected both brake switches thinking one or the other had a short....No >difference. >Swapped out the taillight assembly thinking there was a short in the >socket....No difference. >Swapped out the entire rear wiring section...No difference!!!! >Both filaments in the tail bulb are on full time and with everything >connected application of either or both brakes makes it a little brighter, >but only marginally. >Before I noticed the tail problem a buddy put a meter on the headlight >connector and he says current is within the normal levels.( Up to 14 amps? >volts? under full throttle) >As you can tell electrical stuff is black magic and voodoo to me so any >suggestions/pointers greatly appreciated >Steve Pye >A7

-----Original Message----- From: Tom Bowman To: spye@... Date: Monday, June 26, 2000 8:50 AM Subject: Re: [DSN_klr650] Electrical....HELP!!

>Have you tried swapping the taillight bulb for a new one? I've >seen bulbs fail in such a way that the upper filament "collapses" >onto the lower one and both are powered at the same time. A long >shot, but possible. > >A problem like this is generally caused by a pinched wire to the >brake switch either front or rear. Hint: if you've had something >off the bike and reinstalled it about the time this started, >start looking there. >Tom Bowman >Atlanta >A14

Tom, Thanks for the suggestion, you were right on the money!!! In all my years of fooling with snowmobiles and motorcycles i've never seen a bulb do that. Isn't there a quote about the anwser to any question usually being the simplest solution. I should have known better! Not sure what's up with the headlight but at least I have one problem now instead of two! Thanks, Steve Pye A7

> >Tom, >Thanks for the suggestion, you were right on the money!!! In all my years of >fooling with snowmobiles and motorcycles i've never seen a bulb do that. >Isn't there a quote about the anwser to any question usually being the >simplest solution. I should have known better! >Not sure what's up with the headlight but at least I have one problem now >instead of two! >Thanks, >Steve Pye >A7

NAW Steve, you really need to tear into your harness. I was gonna tell you to check the bulb, but you said that you swapped out rear ends and it still did it. I guess assumptions get you know where. Glad you got it fixed and it was simple. LaterZ Dash

-----Original Message----- From: Dash Weeks To: dsn_klr650@egroups.com dsn_klr650@egroups.com> Date: Monday, June 26, 2000 3:08 PM

>NAW Steve, you really need to tear into your harness. >I was gonna tell you to check the bulb, but you said that you swapped out >rear ends and it still did it. I guess assumptions get you know where. >Glad you got it fixed and it was simple. >LaterZ >Dash

Hey Dash, This shows the full extent of my electrical repair ability, swapping sockets and harnesses but using the same d#%& defective bulb!! Thanks for the informative post on harness repair anyway. I keep a file of tech stuff I find interesting and your post is there now. In the mean time, any guess as to why I keep burning out headlight bulbs? I figured a short circut would be blowing fuses but they seem o.k. and I haven't had to replace any. I've put 4 bulbs in this thing in less than 3000 kilos and that seems like a lot to me. Any thoughts? Steve Pye A7