| Author | Message | ||
     Mark_weiss |
From where does the lighting circuit draw its power? At the end of last week I noticed that my turn signals had stopped operating. When I got home I found that my tail-light, license plate light, signals, and pilot lamp were all dark. I checked the "Lights" fuse and found that it had NOT failed. I checked for power at the turn signal relay...no power. I jumped power from the forward accessory socket to the turn signal relay and all of the lights once again operate. I opened my trusty 2008 Buell Factory Service Manual and found the diagram for the lighting circuit. The diagram clearly shows that the Orange/White wires connect all of the lights which were not operating. What I don't see is WHERE does the Orange/White circuit tap into power? Since all of the lights were live under borrowed power, they are all still connected. Somewhere there must be a lead that taps a hot circuit, but where? | ||
| Pushr0d |
Mark, I've attached the diagram from the Electrical Manual. EDIT: Jeez! I didn't intend to make it a wallpaper! 15A fuse. I'm thinking it might be a ground or two.  (Message edited by pushr0d on February 04, 2022) | ||
| Tootal |
It's been a while but for some time folks were having issues with the wiring breaking where the bundle goes around the left side of the frame by the front forks. There are two connections in the middle of all those wires that are soldered and shrink wrapped over. I don't think they are shown on the diagram. If you put power to the circuit and they lit up then there must be a ground. | ||
| Rays |
My money is on the ignition switch. In my 2009 electrical diag manual it shows the orange/white wire on the right side of the Accessory fuse joined to the orange white that is common to the flasher, tail light etc. On the drawing above if you move the black joining dot on the R/H side of the fuse about 1/8" to the right it will be correct. This is the same set-up as on the earlier 12X's and a couple of us ran into this exact issue way back when. Try wiggling the ignition switch with the key in and you might get spot where the circuit in question gets good contact. The ignition switch has two separate contacts internally so one side can get crusty and the other side that powers the rest of the bike systems can be fine. I think there is still an old post of mine here that describes how to pull the switch apart and clean the contacts. I'll have a search and edit this if/when I find it Ray PS. Here is a link to one of my old posts related to this issue on the BullXB forum that still has live pictures. https://www.buellxb.com/forum/showthread.php?13596-Ignition-Switch (Message edited by Rays on February 04, 2022) | ||
| Mark_weiss |
"My money is on the ignition switch." This is starting to sound familiar. A faulty ground will keep the a light off when connected to power. Since all of the lights do illuminate when power is added, the grounds are OK and power is not getting through. I'll dig into the switch. | ||
| Arry |
You might check the accessory fuse, before you dig too deep. | ||
| Griffmeister |
Break out the multimeter and do it right. There is a clear path for power from battery to lighting circuit. Start at the battery and test each component in line for power and voltage drop. Either you”ll find a bad fuse/switch/relay, or if power leaves one component and doesn’t appear at the next then it’s in the harness. Taking power from another source or randomly selecting a component to check can send you down a deep rabbit hole. | ||
| Rays |
Arry makes a good point. I re-read the OP and see the fuse checked was the 'Lights' fuse so the 'Accessory' fuse would definitely be the first port of call. | ||
| Ourdee |
If the light fuse goes, the bike won't start. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Odd to have to check the Accessory fuse to troubleshoot the lights circuit. I'll back to it this weekend. | ||
| Tootal |
Many folks switched the wires going to the headlight to get "both lights on". The wire they switched is controlled by the accessory fuse if I'm not mistaken. That's why the headlight stays on during starting. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Dear Erik Buell, Next time, it would be nice if the fuse labeled "Lights" was for the lights and the fuse labeled "Accessory" was for an accessory circuit. Especially when the bike actually does have accessory sockets, but they aren't connected to the "Accessory" fuse, but to the "Auxiliary" fuse. Troubleshooting could be a lot quicker. Thanks, | ||
| Tootal |
Mark, do you have “both lights on” set up on your bike? | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Only when high beam is selected. Low beam is on a relay. | ||
| Tootal |
Yes, that’s what I mean, high beam. Did you switch the wires at the headlight connector? | ||
| Mark_weiss |
The wires are not changed. I use a time-delay relay to keep my HID low-beam illuminated when the high-beam is on. Where I was fooled was that when I looked at the fuses while stopped in a parking lot, the Accessory fuse appeared OK and my Accessory sockets were operating. I did not know that the non-headlight lights all operated through the Accessory fuse and that the Accessory Sockets operate through the Auxiliary fuse. When you look at the wiring diagram that Pushr0d posted you can see that the wire from the Accessory fuse is mis-printed, not appearing to connect to the lights. I misunderstood this and looked for another power source for the non-headlight lights. The temporary jumper showed that there were no breaks or bad grounds for the non-headlight lights. When I finally had time to get out a test meter I found that the Accessory fuse was open. Replacement of the fuse remedied the problem. If the non-headlight circuit fuse had been labeled Lights (there is nothing else on the circuit other than lights) I would have solved the issue that night. | ||
| Cvc |
Just reading through this thread and noticed you have HID bulbs I do as well in my SS but LED in my XT no appreciable difference in light output but others have had the chrome darkened on the reflectors inside the light over time with the heat of HID’s and i have seen a bunch of car and truck lights damaged coming in to my shop usually poorly installed but not always so take a look. The easiest fix to keep low on with your high beam that I used with LED’s is an inline fuse holder with a diode taking power from the high to low. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
To date, no problem with the reflector in the low-beam shell. I'm considering a swap to LED now, but at the time that I installed the HID (about 11 years ago), quality LED H-7s were not readily available to me. |
