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TOPIC: Re:Headlight Out
#1023230
jd750ace (User)
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Gender: Male jd750ace Location: Waxahachie Texas Birthdate: 1969-10-30
Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
JimH wrote:
NickJFerro wrote:
Hey guys, so my headlight went out the other week and I've just gotten around to replacing it. To my surprise, I put a new bulb in and it still didn't work. Upon closer inspection I noticed one of the three terminals which feeds the headlight is burnt up. Not sure what caused it, but it looks like the plug in that hole probably came loose and caused some excessive heat buildup. Anyways, it still doesn't work even with the new bulb but I'm wondering where to go from here. Order a new connector? Restrip the wire? I'm not sure I can crimp it back into that slot though since it's kind of inside the plug area.

Any advice would be great, thanks.



Mine did this a couple of years ago,I never really figured out why but I had to replace the plug before it worked again.You can find generic plugs fairly easily on line and at the auto parts store.


I bought a new ceramic plug for less than 6 bucks on EBay.
 
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#1023378
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Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
Alright guys, so I got the voltmeter out and it's not the plug that's bad. When testing for voltage on both sides of the fuse which serves the headlight I get battery voltage showing on both ends so the fuse is good. Testing the wires that enter that black connector which goes to the back of the headlight bulb I get no voltage reading on any of them.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I'm thinking this means that somewhere between that fuse and the headlight assembly there's a missing connection.



The only other thing I can think of is that there may be an issue of having removed some other wires from the bucket. With my current setup, I have no hi beam. When I turn the bike on the headlight turns on (or did) and that's it. It has no blinkers, kill switch, horn or any buttons of any kind.



I remember when I was setting it up though, I had snipped some of the wires heading to the handlebar controls units and doing so cut out the headlight even though I didn't cut the headlight wire itself. I recently unplugged the extra leads which were connected to the plugs in the headlight bucket. Perhaps I had a completed loop on one of those and in removing it I've broken the circuit? On the white plug, two of the 5 wires read battery voltage at the ends, maybe this is the loop that needs to be connected?

Stupid me, I took them out at the same time I put the new bulb in. I should have waited until I had the bulb in there and working before unplugging those connectors.

If anyone has any insight into what other wires would be needed to run the headlight circuit, I'm all ears. If not, I'll see about chasing these wires back under the tank to see if something is shorted.

Thanks
 
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Last Edit: 2017/10/03 12:28 By NickJFerro.
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#1023489
NickJFerro (User)
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Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
Alright guys I figured it out. Turns out the problem was two parts. One part bad bulb, one part bad owner lol.

Posting this process so if someone else is in the same situation they can use this as a guide to figure it out.

Was reading no voltage at any of the headlight terminals. Was reading battery voltage at the fuse. Thinking to myself, alright then the problem must be between those two points, I decided to chase the wires back down the harness. Out of sheer luck I started with the green wire. I made a small incision in the rubber harness that runs along the backbone of the frame to see where that green headlight wire was running to. I couldn't find it anywhere.

Strange, I thought, because it must be running to the power somewhere. I went back to the headlight area and figured I'd chase it from the very beginning to find the route. Turns out, it tucked into the same harness that all the other wires did, but it does a 180 and comes right back out! Where does it lead to? That blue block I removed some wires from.



Pulled out the phone for the old google search tactic. Searching "roadstar headlight wiring" I came upon this confusing (to me at least) looking diagram.



Reminding myself that it's either figure this diagram out or never ride at night again, I took a closer look to find anything I could use as a baseline as to where I was in this mess of wires. Bottom left area labeled headlight is where we're at for this particular job. I see the green yellow and black wires that match the block I'm looking at. Green wire is what I'm seeing routing back into a blue block that goes nowhere. Not good. What's the green wire labeled? "Lo beam." Ahh, that would explain the problem here lol.

Whatever was attached to that blue fuse block (that I removed when I changed the bulb because it went to nothing) must have done a 180 of it's own and gone back into the main harness leading to power and by removing it I opened the circuit.

Looking at the diagram further, I see that the green wire makes a connection to a red and yellow wire which then takes it back to the headlight fuse. Ok, there's two of those in this empty white socket connector.



Using a spare piece of wire, I stuffed one end into the green wire slot on the blue block, and the other end into one of the red and yellow wire slot on the white block. Testing the green wire for voltage still reads zero. No luck. Repeated the process for the other red yellow wire slot in the white block and voila! I get battery voltage on the green wire again! In the picture below you can see the testing method in action, that small yellow wire between the white and blue blocks was the testing wire.



In realizing that I had found the proper connection I needed, I snipped both wires out of their fuse blocks and twisted them together with some electrical tape over top of them. I'll do a proper solder connection with heat shrink once I get the bike over to my buddies garage, but there's only so much you can do when it's night time and your bike is in a parking lot in pieces lol.



But alls well that ends well, and I took her out for a spin with my new headlight shining as bright as ever, feeling proud of myself for finding the problem, and happy that I started with that green wire! The next project will be to replace the headlight entirely with a smaller one, and to remove all those extra wires from the headlight bucket.



More on that in the future, off to ride for now.
 
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#1023492
Arps (User)
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Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
Glad you got it figured out
 
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#1023496
Jclevesque (User)
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Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
Nothing like a parking lot fix up to get you going in the dark again. lol glad you got it figured out!
 
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#1023505
NickJFerro (User)
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Re:Headlight Out 4 Months, 3 Weeks ago  
I'm just lucky someone was leaving the best-lit spot in the whole parking lot right as I was starting to work on it.

But boy do you get some dirty looks from people walking by for using a parking space for this type of thing. There goes the neighborhood lol
 
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