[slickware]

Hi all.

Cracked a directional and ordered a (supposedly) OEM version off Bikebandit.com.

The signals I have on the bike just have ONE black wire coming out, which plugs into an orange wire somewhere in the headlight-tangle-harness.

The signals I RECEIVED have 2 wires, a red and a black.

If I plug the red into the orange and ground the black, all I get is a solid directional (no blinking). Same thing happens if I reverse this - black->orange, ground the red wire.

I am pretty useless reading the electrical diagram, but the ones I've found seem to indicate that there's only supposed to be one wire coming straight out of the directional itself.

So, can I make this work with the 2-wire setup, and if so, how?

Directions for the electrically-challenged much appreciated!

~Adam / Dallas

 

[CurbTiger]

The original signal depended on its grounding through the metal of the signal body and onto the big nut which the stem threads into, which in turn hold the headlight onto the ear. Sorry for the run-on sentence. I'm assuming your situation has the signal holding the headlight on....
Anyway, most likely the red wire is intended for plugging into the orange wire of the rats nest. Ground the black wire by plugging it into a solid green female somewhere in the rats nest. Sometimes an extra connection can be found in the fat three or four plug green wire connector.
Another situation could be this...the light you recieved may intended for turn signal and clearance light. Pull the lense off and remove the bulb. One silver contact, or two, down in there?
Lastly, if no blinky, maybe the signal relay has failed. Is there blinky on the other side of the bike or at the same side but other end?

NE

 

[66Sprint]

Adam, The first thing you will need to know is : IS the bulb in the new signal a single or dual filament bulb?...... Once you know that, we can determine what wire goes where....
The second thing is that both bulbs on either side of the bike are good and draw enough wattage to cause the flasher to flash (lower total wattage will not have as much "draw' and the lights will come on and not flash right away...They will eventually flash albeit slowly if they are hooked up correctly if your flasher is good....higher wattage bulbs will cure this "slow-flashing") Or, if only one bulb on a side is good, they won't flash....Just one will come on....
Curb Tiger and I have said the same thing, just in two different ways....Hopefully one of us will be understandable to you....

 

[slickware]

Ok, so first off -

The new bulb has 2 contacts on the bottom. I'm assuming this means dual-fil?
The old bulbs only have 1 contact (I had considered replacing the internals, but I don't have any spare single-contact bulbs.)

I guess I'm confused with this: if I grounded the black wire already (to the frame/bars), why would it do anything different than grounding it to a green wire? (or maybe with the dual filament bulb I'm not supposed to?)

The other side of the bike DOES blink. I assumed that, given this diagram: http://oldmanhonda.com/MC/wiring350K4.html, there was only one "winker" that controlled the blinking of both/either lights.

I did also leave them on for a while, I know they take a minute to heat up, but the new one never gets hot enough to blink.

I did buy TWO of the new directionals - maybe I need to connect both and use them as running lights too?

~Adam / DAllas

 

[66Sprint]

OK... The "new" signals are both signals and running lights..... One wire color is for each filament, and the mount/body is the ground.....You'll want the brighter filament to be the "turn' lamp and the other for a running light....(you can hook the "other" color wires to the Honda white wire to the headlamp)

 

[slickware]

FYI, here's what I'm working with. Old assembly on the left, new on the right:

 

[slickware]

hahaha... so it's possibly that they didn't flash because I didn't actually attach the mount/body to the mounting post ( i just left it hanging to test)

amazing. 66sprint you are an amazing resourrce!

 

[slickware]

No luck.

Here's what I've tried so far, with the new setup.

Remember, Red and Black coming out of the unit.

1) Red->Orange, Black-> disconnected. Result: no light, rear taillight turns on but no blink.

2) Red->Orange, Black->Green. Result: Bulb on bright, no blink.

3) Black->Orange, Red->Green. Result: Bulb on dim, no blink.

4) Black->Orange, Red->Disconnected. Result: no light, rear taillight turns on but no blink.

5) Red->Orange, Black->White(from a wire going straight to headlight). Result: No light, rear directional on but no blink.

 

[tbpmusic]

No, leave the green Honda wire out of it for now - that's ground.
Neither of the two wires from your signal unit is ground, ok??

Get a couple of test leads with alligator clips.
Figure out which wire to the signal (red or black) is brighter. Do it by running one test lead from battery ground to the bulb housing. The other from battery hot to one of the wires - one of them should glow brighter, that color is your turn signal. Connect that lead to either the orange or light blue Honda wire.
You should have turn signals now, assuming your signal unit is grounded.

The leftover wire (from the dimmer filament) can be run up to the low beam wire, as Steve said, to give running lights (or to the taillight wire, which is closer to the rear and hot no matter hi/lo beam).

 

[CurbTiger]

Option #5 should be your best bet. But I think you've got something else going on that doesn't allow enough current to the blinker relay for it to do its business.
Find the gray wire connection in the rats nest. It brings power from the relay up to the switchblock, where it gets directed to either the left or the right. Double check that th connection is good. This may help your situation, but not solve it.
Have you split open the LH switchblock to check the condition of the contacts in there? Could be just gooey contacts.
Or a spider nest. (not joking)
When you do unscrew the switchblock, put some penetrating oil under the head of the screw before your try turning it. Make sure your screwdriver tip is clean and not buggered up. Them screws are really soft and the head will strip before you know it. Then you gotta fight the good fight to get it out.

NE

 

[slickware]

See above - #5 resulted in no lights whatsoever.

Also, the directionals worked 3 days ago, before I cracked the directional assembly, so I am 99.9% certain that the handlebar switch is good.
Furthermore, flipping the switch DOES cause the bulbs to light up, they just don't blink.

Again, connecting one lead to the directional (orange) and one lead to the headlamp (white) results in NO light from the front directional at all, but the rear one still works.

~A

 

[slickware]

Cutting the low-beam piece out of the equation, shouldn't JUST connecting one wire to the orange wire cause the unit to light up (if the case is grounded, as we suspect)? I mean, if I didn't want to use them as running lights (since I can't fit both wires through the mounting tube anyway) I should be getting light even with just connecting one...

 

[tbpmusic]

See above - #5 resulted in no lights whatsoever.

Also, the directionals worked 3 days ago, before I cracked the directional assembly, so I am 99.9% certain that the handlebar switch is good.
Furthermore, flipping the switch DOES cause the bulbs to light up, they just don't blink.

Again, connecting one lead to the directional (orange) and one lead to the headlamp (white) results in NO light from the front directional at all, but the rear one still works.

~A

If both directionals light up but don't blink, it's probably the flasher unit.
Don't know what model you're talking about, but any old 12 volt flasher from the auto part store will work, they're like $3 or so.

As far as the running light go, just blow them off, why bother??
If you gotta have them, try one of the brown or brown/white wires in the headlight shell. On most models they're for indicators, etc., and are on when the taillight is on no matter hi beam (blue) or lo beam (white).

 

[slickware]

Both directionals ONLY light up when I connect one of the wires coming out of the unit to ground. According to someone earlier, NEITHER of the wires in the unit should be "ground", so why would this work at all?

According to the wiring diagram, there's only one Flasher unit for both sides of the bike, and the other side works fine. Is there a way to test this?

 

[CurbTiger]

Well, it shouldn't work when either of the wires is grounded, but it does. Possibly it's grounding through the other filament, because the housing is the common point of the situation.
Have you tried the other replacement housing?
The other side of the bike works OK, so that rules out the signal relay, most likely.
I know this may seem counter-intuitive, but have you checked the grounding of the rear signal? It's a notoriously flaky situation as well.
If any grounds are marginal, then the relay doesn't get enough juice to trigger.
Do, at least, give the LH switchblock a squirt of WD40 through the signal switch slot. It'll need it anyway. You are dealing with a 40 year old machine. Work the switch back and forth.
Being as this is a Japanese bike, one must attack the problem from a distance sometimes, as with the "Japanese chess" game Go.

When

 

[slickware]

Grounding WAS the issue.

As I was poking around inside the headlight bucket, grounding the black wire to different objects, I noticed that if I touched it to the right-hand bracket-bolt, the light came on, but the left-hand bolt did not produce a similar ground.
Tracing the green wire from the bolt led me to a disconnected lead, and after fixing that -- success! (the rear wires were pretty crappy too, I'm glad you had me poke around there also. Nothing too bad but a few places that needed some electrical-tape love to prevent any future issues.)

 

[CurbTiger]

Nice work!!

NE

 

[slickware]

I should probably try and connect the low-beam to the headlights somehow next and actually have running lights, since this headlight is so damn dim...
Thanks again all.