i regret selling my klr - sorta nklr now

[Michael Schaefer]

Hello, I was getting my bike inspected the other day and the inspector noticed that my rear tail light stays on ALL THE TIME. Pushing on the foot brake doesn't do anything to it. I took it home and tore it down to check all the connections. I noticed that since my last valve job, I had not reconnected the brake pedal switch back to the lead. I fixed this but the light still stays on. My first guess is that I have a bad switch at the foot brake. But then I think that this thing was on all the time even when that was disconnected. Anyways, I searched the archives on here and saw that people recommended to another fellow to get a multitester and start testing the circuitry. I'm pretty sure I know what a multitester is (seen my dad use one way back when). But I wouldn't really know what the procedure would be to hunt this down. Could anyone give some tips and/or point me to some good reading material? Thanks, Michael A11

[zootpatutie]

noticed that my rear tail light stays on ALL THE TIME. Pushing on the foot brake doesn't do anything to it. snip Tail light is supposed to be on all the time. Lack of a brake light could just be a bad bulb. Brake light on all the time indicates a short or crossed wires with the tail light. Todd

[Conall O'Brien]

>From: "Michael Schaefer" >To: DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com >Subject: [DSN_klr650] Tail Light Problem >Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 14:36:42 -0000 > >Hello, > > >I was getting my bike inspected the other day and the inspector >noticed that my rear tail light stays on ALL THE TIME. Pushing on the >foot brake doesn't do anything to it. > >

How about the front brake? Does that change the brightness of the tail lamp? Thanks, Conall _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

[Conall O'Brien]

--- In DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com, "Conall O'Brien" wrote:

> > >From: "Michael Schaefer" > >To: DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com > >Subject: [DSN_klr650] Tail Light Problem > >Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 14:36:42 -0000 > > > >Hello, > > > > > >I was getting my bike inspected the other day and the inspector > >noticed that my rear tail light stays on ALL THE TIME. Pushing on

the

> >foot brake doesn't do anything to it. > > > > > > How about the front brake? Does that change the brightness of the

tail lamp?

> Thanks, > > Conall >

To clarify my email I'm replying to, the tail light _is_ supposed to be on ALL THE TIME. The problem may be that only the stop lamp is not working. The easiest way to check this is change the bulb with a known good one. Don't assume the problem is that the brake light is on, maybe you are seeing the tail light, and never the brake light. The dumbshit inspector may have lead you to a possible false solution by not verifying the problem. Conall-filling in for the good prof. Jim

[dooden]

Unless the front brake makes the "high" element of the bulb do its thing. Dooden --- In DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com, "zootpatutie" wrote:

> noticed that my rear tail light stays on ALL THE TIME. Pushing on > the foot brake doesn't do anything to it. > > snip > > Tail light is supposed to be on all the time. Lack of a brake light > could just be a bad bulb. Brake light on all the time indicates a > short or crossed wires with the tail light. > Todd

[Michael Schaefer]

Thanks everyone. I'm gonna try a new bulb and see if that fixes things. --- In DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com, "Conall O'Brien" wrote:

> To clarify my email I'm replying to, the tail light _is_ supposed

to

> be on ALL THE TIME. The problem may be that only the stop lamp is

not

> working. The easiest > way to check this is change the bulb with a known good one. Don't > assume the problem is that the brake light is on, maybe you are > seeing the tail light, and never the brake light. The dumbshit > inspector may have lead you to a possible false solution by not > verifying the > problem. > > Conall-filling in for the good prof. Jim

[bryanonfire]

Hi, Recently I noticed that the rear brake light seemed pretty dim. I figured it was just the bulb and replaced that. But it turns out that there's something reversed in the wiring. (This is just a guess, I know nothing about electrical stuff.) It looks as though the bright filament is always on, and when I apply brakes the dimmer one comes on. In other words, the light only gets marginally brighter when I apply brakes, which is a safety worry. For all I know I've been riding it this way for years. It's an 03 that I bought used. Can anyone save me some time and steer me towards the probably cause and necessary repair? Thanks, Bryan

[Eddie]

There are three wires to the bulb socket. One goes to the socket body itself and is simply the ground (-). The other two are as you guessed, the brake and running light circuits. It's supposed to be impossible to install the dual filament bulb incorrectly (reversing the filament duties) because the pins on the bulb are at unequal positions. BUT, there may be a chance the bulb or socket got messed up. Mark the bulb with dot via a sharpie pen and try and install it 180 degrees from the way it came out. It should not be possible. If it can be, your problem of the high/low filament has been "fixed". That said, if the bulb won't go in backwards (and it should not be able to), the two (+) wires have been reversed somewhere, possibly under the seat. If they don't plug in individually and are part of a common connector, get a friend with soldering skills to cut and swap them. Good luck!

----- Original Message ----- From: bryanonfire To: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 2:09 PM Subject: [DSN_KLR650] tail light problem Hi, Recently I noticed that the rear brake light seemed pretty dim. I figured it was just the bulb and replaced that. But it turns out that there's something reversed in the wiring. (This is just a guess, I know nothing about electrical stuff.) It looks as though the bright filament is always on, and when I apply brakes the dimmer one comes on. In other words, the light only gets marginally brighter when I apply brakes, which is a safety worry. For all I know I've been riding it this way for years. It's an 03 that I bought used. Can anyone save me some time and steer me towards the probably cause and necessary repair? Thanks, Bryan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[dat brooklyn bum]

For clarity's sake, there are three wires going to the brake light on my KLR (pre-2007). Unless they changed it for the newer models, they are all bullet connectors. The black with yellow stripe is the ground, and from your description can be left alone. The wire that is red with a white stripe is the power from the ignition circuit (aka the tail light). The third wire is blue IIRC and is the wire to the brake switches (aka brake light). In any case, leave the black/yellow wire alone and switch the other two wires. Oughta fix ya right up. (I'm tracing a ground problem in my tail light assembly right now, so I was poking at those wires with a multimeter just yesterday) da Vermonster

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "eddie" wrote: > > There are three wires to the bulb socket. One goes to the socket body itself and is simply the ground (-). > The other two are as you guessed, the brake and running light circuits. It's supposed to be impossible to > install the dual filament bulb incorrectly (reversing the filament duties) because the pins on the bulb are at unequal positions. > BUT, there may be a chance the bulb or socket got messed up. Mark the bulb with dot via a sharpie pen and try and install it 180 degrees from the way it came out. It should not be possible. If it can be, your problem of the high/low filament has been "fixed". That said, if the bulb won't go in backwards (and it should not be able to), > the two (+) wires have been reversed somewhere, possibly under the seat. If they don't plug in individually and are part of a > common connector, get a friend with soldering skills to cut and swap them. > Good luck! > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: bryanonfire > To: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 2:09 PM > Subject: [DSN_KLR650] tail light problem > > > > Hi, > > Recently I noticed that the rear brake light seemed pretty dim. I figured it was just the bulb and replaced that. But it turns out that there's something reversed in the wiring. (This is just a guess, I know nothing about electrical stuff.) It looks as though the bright filament is always on, and when I apply brakes the dimmer one comes on. In other words, the light only gets marginally brighter when I apply brakes, which is a safety worry. > > For all I know I've been riding it this way for years. It's an 03 that I bought used. > > Can anyone save me some time and steer me towards the probably cause and necessary repair? > > Thanks, > > Bryan > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >

[Ron Haraseth]

Make sure the ground wire is secure. Sounds like the circuit may be "seeking " its ground through the tail light/headlight circuit. Try temporarily jumpering a wire from a known chassis ground like the tail rack bolts to the tail light chassis assembly to test. Ron

----- Original Message ----- From: bryanonfire To: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 2:09 PM Subject: [DSN_KLR650] tail light problem Hi, Recently I noticed that the rear brake light seemed pretty dim. I figured it was just the bulb and replaced that. But it turns out that there's something reversed in the wiring. (This is just a guess, I know nothing about electrical stuff.) It looks as though the bright filament is always on, and when I apply brakes the dimmer one comes on. In other words, the light only gets marginally brighter when I apply brakes, which is a safety worry. For all I know I've been riding it this way for years. It's an 03 that I bought used. Can anyone save me some time and steer me towards the probably cause and necessary repair? Thanks, Bryan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ List Sponsors - Dual Sport News: http://www.dualsportnews.com Arrowhead Motorsports: http://www.arrowheadmotorsports.com List FAQ courtesy of Chris Krok: http://www.bigcee.com/klr650faq.html Members Map https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=212558560286766214899.0004d0fa9f1732283bb6f&msa=0&ll=38.522384,-109.489746&spn=6.831383,9.624023Yahoo! Groups Links