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Posted

Thankyou to all of you…..nice to wake up to a raft of suggestions and possible remedies! Busy (not bike related!) this morning but will have another read of these recent posts and progress methodically through them…report back later.

Big regards, tennitragic.

Posted

Put all this input down on paper and check off everything after each test and verify the original system was/is working w/the modified system .  

The factory lighting has a dim light w/the key on . When you apply flash to pass the bright light should come on and go out when you remove your finger. Also the headlight should be on w/the key on and go out when you push the start button and the starter cranks .

Posted
10 hours ago, Weegie said:

The bar switch provides positive voltage when the beam is selected

I think the Lo Beam relay is wired correctly (although why he wired back to the battery on the coil side seems OTT)

The Hi Beam has a Positive from the battery (85) and (86) is wired to the bar switch, this where things go awry and probably accounts for the wierd behaviour of the beams with ignition Off. The battery will be backfeeding positive voltage into the switch (it won't do any harm but probably result in wierd behavour). 

The Hi Beam Green wire to (85) should be connected to battery negative

I apologise to @audiomick if that's what he stated in the previous posts, I just couldn't understand, which says more about me than him :rolleyes:

You could wait for another member to confirm, no harm on a second opinion ;)

 

I think your observations are spot on.

I had to add into to my relay diagram, but reached the same conclusion as you.

 

SPAZlite.png

  • Like 3
Posted
10 hours ago, Weegie said:

...

I apologise to @audiomick if that's what he stated in the previous posts,

Well it is, but I'm happy to have the confirmation. :)

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, Weegie said:

,,, the wierd behaviour of the beams with ignition Off. The battery will be backfeeding positive voltage into the switch (it won't do any harm but probably result in wierd behavour)....

 

What was happening there is actually fairly simple.

One side of the coil in the relay was getting permanent 12 V from the battery. The other side was also seeing 12V with the ignition on, when the high/low beam switch was switched to that relay.

Result: no potential difference (difference in Volts) from one end of the coil to the other. It doesn't matter if it is 0V at both ends, or 12V, or even 1000V. If there is no difference, no current will flow, no magnetic field will happen, and the relay wont switch. So, no lights.

With the ignition off, the coil in the relay had 12V at one end, and the other end was connected to a part of the wiring loom that wasn't connected to anything else (with the ignition switch off). If all were well, no current should have flowed, the relay shouldn't have switched, and no lights should have gone on.

But the light did go on, so therefore there must be a fault in the wiring loom that lets a bit of current go back to "earth", i.e. battery minus. But as I wrote further up, that can be addressed later.

Edited by audiomick
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Posted

It will be VERY telling what changes when the green wire is moved from the positive to the negative battery terminal.

IMG_1278.jpeg

 

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Posted

Reporting back….both green wires disconnected from the battery, ignition off, no high-beam! Image 1

This was a good start….!

Then, both green wires were connected to battery negative as many have suggested, ignition on……success!! Image 2

All lights worked as they should do!

And to check I didn’t stuff up anything else… she fired up as before!

Big thank you fellows….!

If any of you fine helpers are in Sydney anytime soon? …..dinner is on me!

Regards, tennitragic

IMG_1296.jpeg

IMG_1300.jpeg

  • Thanks 2
Posted
13 minutes ago, Tennitragic said:

Reporting back….both green wires disconnected from the battery, ignition off, no high-beam! Image 1

This was a good start….!

Then, both green wires were connected to battery negative as many have suggested, ignition on……success!! Image 2

All lights worked as they should do!

And to check I didn’t stuff up anything else… she fired up as before!

Big thank you fellows….!

If any of you fine helpers are in Sydney anytime soon? …..dinner is on me!

Regards, tennitragic

IMG_1296.jpeg

IMG_1300.jpeg

 

Congrats on the fix.

Audiomick and Weegie are the Hercule Poirots of this Agatha C mystery:bier:

 

i can't imagine trying to keep these beasts running without this forum.

  • Like 5
  • Haha 1
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Tennitragic said:

Reporting back….both green wires disconnected from the battery, ignition off, no high-beam! Image 1

This was a good start….!

Then, both green wires were connected to battery negative as many have suggested, ignition on……success!! Image 2

All lights worked as they should do!

And to check I didn’t stuff up anything else… she fired up as before!

Big thank you fellows….!

If any of you fine helpers are in Sydney anytime soon? …..dinner is on me!

Regards, tennitragic

IMG_1296.jpeg

IMG_1300.jpeg

Now that this is fixed . Get the wiring diagram (in the back of your owner's manual and have it enlarged making a dozen copies w/6 of them 8.5 X 11 and 6 of them LARGE . You will need this for down the road .   Also , go back through this forum and find ALL of Kiwi_Roy's diagrams and make copies. I think he posted maybe eight total. I have them and could not find them .or it would have been VERY helpful. 

 Also , get relay connectors and splice them into the existing wiring . It will clean things up and make future work easy. 

Edited by gstallons
  • Like 2
Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, Tennitragic said:

All lights worked as they should do!

And to check I didn’t stuff up anything else… she fired up as before!

Great. :thumbsup:

 

There is still the question of where the wrongly connected green wire was finding the connection through the coil and back to battery minus.

Whether you want to dig into that is more or less your choice. Whatever the connection is, it must be very high resistance, otherwise the lights wouldn't work. The mystery connection to "earth", i.e. back to battery minus must be in the bit of the loom that is supplying the 12V to switch the new relays, i.e. in the original power supply for the headlights.

If the mystery earth connection were not very high resistance, the Volts that are supposed to be switching the new relays would disappear there instead of appearing at the relays, so it must be a very high resistance leak.

Looking at the wiring diagram, assuming ignition off, and the actual situation on your bike, i.e. with the new relays:

The section of wiring that comes into question is connected to

Pin 87 of the lighting relay (34)

that is the output of that relay, and the source of the voltage in that part of the loom. It is fed on to

The "input" side of the front brake switch (37)

The "input" side of the rear brake switch (26)

The "input" side of the horn switch, the high/low beam switch and the "flash" switch in the left handlebar switchblock (19)

Up to there, it is fairly straightforward. Clean all the connectors, inspect the wiring loom for signs of physical damage, open up the switchblock and see what it looks like inside.

Then there is the final bit of that part of the loom.

First of all, the English legend to the wiring diagramm I linked to has a further mistake. It lists (14) as "oil level switch". This is obviously wrong, as the bike doesn't have one of those. The German legend on the next page lists (14) as "Kraftsoffpegelschalter", i.e. "Fuel level switch". The bike does have one of those, and the telltale that it is connected to is labelled "benz". Petrol (Gasoline) is "benzina" in Italian, so (14) is the fuel level switch.

The part of the wiring loom that we are interested in also feeds the fuel level switch, so there is a further connection to

One of the pins on the 12-pin connector to the dashboard (8)

From the other side of that connection, the wire goes to the tell-tale for low fuel, back through the same connector block, and on to the low fuel level switch, which switches the incoming voltage to earth when it closes.

In that 12-pin connector to the dashboard, according to the wiring diagram, there is also a connection earth to earth.

So that is one possibilty: there might be muck in that connector that is allowing a trickle current to earth from the pin that is connected to the part of the loom we are interested in. Easy: pull the connector apart, inspect it, clean it.

Then there is the fuel level switch, and this is where I am getting out of my depth.

As far as I know, the fuel level switch is an NTC thermistor, one of these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermistor

Can someone confirm that, please?

Going by the description, one of those probably never goes completely open circuit. If that is true, there will ultimately always be a (very) high resistance connection to earth through that component, even when the switch is "open", i.e. not low fuel level. I don't know for sure.

If that is true, though, maybe there isn't a fault as such, but rather something like a "weakness in design" that showed up only because of the incorrect wiring, i.e. your green wire on the battery plus.

Would anyone else care to comment on that last point?

Anyway, it is up to you @Tennitragic to decide if you want to go looking for the mysterious earth connection, or whether you want to just ride the bike, because everything works. :)

 

 

 

Edited by audiomick
Posted (edited)

@Tennitragic as I was chopping up stuff for the soup in the kitchen just now, your problem was still going round in my head.

And a blaringly obvious question popped up that should have occurred to me at least hours ago, if not days:

How much fuel is in the tank?

If it is low enough that the fuel light is on, then all questions are answered and the case is closed. :huh2:

Edited by audiomick
  • Like 1
Posted

Much appreciated this last week….

Next step is fit new parts replacing perished rubber items. Side covers, battery tray….These are due in two weeks so plenty of time to read ‘topic’ posts and assess what I can do myself to the wiring/improvements beyond the ‘great green wire’ fiasco! 

I’ll be honest and admit limitations…..

Thanks to you guys I can now take the bike for a safety check with the road authorities. In my State only 30+ year old vehicles receive any concessions. Previously low-beam not working a big fail!

Regards, tennitragic

  • Like 2
Posted
8 minutes ago, Tennitragic said:

...take the bike for a safety check with the road authorities. .

I hope taking it over the pits works out. Good luck. :)

Posted

I "think" the fuel level sensor is a capacitive type sensor . I THINK.

If you disconnected it and the gremlins went away , you could be sure it was low on fuel or the sensor was messed up.

 

Posted

To the best of my knowledge the low level fuel warning "transmitter" is an NTC thermistor. That's why the lamp glows before full brightness, avalanche effect of the current increase causing further heating and lowering circuit resistance further

I've no clue on quantitative resistance values.

Could the backfeed not find a path to ground on the Hi Beam Relay through the Hi Beam bulb?

Coil resistance in the relay could easily drop the voltage sufficiently that the bulb won't light but still provide a path to ground.

I know Guzzi used a similar scheme on the single indicator dash warning lamp on some models. The indicator warning light grounds through the indicator bulbs on the opposite side selected.

Personally I wouldn't bother, the scheme is now working as intended. 

Chasing grounds could take forever and result in finding nothing

Hell I still don't even know if I'm using the correct wiring diagram. :rolleyes:

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