Electrical problem with my 1982 Yamah XJ750

Hello all, I just discovered this site today and I am hoping that some one can help me out with my current problem. I recently whent for a ride with my bike and everything was working perfectly, I stoped at the gas station to fuel up, got back on the bike and noticed that the headlight was no longer working! I also have an auxilery light and that one would not work as was. I checked the Haynes manual and ther is nothing to help me out. I also checked the fuses u nder the seat and behind the headlight, all were perfect. The wire harnes is in great condition and I can not see anny visual dammage to it.

I must add that ever since I bougt the bike last year, all was working perfectly except for the left flasher. I bougt a new battery near the and of the season to see if that would change anny thing, but it is still reacting the same way. the right flasher works fine but the left one flashe once, than stays on and will not contunue to flash.

I strated to open up the flasher and headlight switch located on the left handel bar, but it all loks clean.

If any one can help me out with this, it would be greatly appriciated. Thank you and have a great day.

P.S. burn rubber, not your soul.

 

Do you still have the the glass fuses? If so, you may want to check the fuse with a mutimeter for continuity. Sometimes these fuses fail inside the end caps and you won't see it just by looking at the fuse. If you don't have a multimeter, just install a new fuse.
Sorry thats all I got.
Good luck
Someone with more electrical experience will be along to help shortly, I'm sure.
And welcome to the group, post some pics of your ride in the gallery.
You also might want to check out this link on fuse upgrade.

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=658.html

 

Hey there, thank you for the update, I found one glas fuse behind the headlight, i will check it tomorow if it is not raining outside. the rest are regular fuses you woul find in a car, but I will test all of them with my mutlimeter just to be on the safe side. that is a good place to start.

I also forgot to mention that I bought a new flasher relay to see if it would fix my left flasher problem, but it is still the same, so that mean the relay is still in working condition. I found some helpfull tips on the falowing web site:

http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/spee ... lcome.html

I will also be looking into cleaning the flasher switch as well as the headlight switch to see if it helps.

Any one else have other ideas? thank you.

 

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention, I also have no more lighting in the intrument console!?

 

Welcome Mr. Beauchamp, I'm glad to hear you found us! I'm thinking from your description that you have had the dreaded corrosion monster dig into your machine (sadly, it is a common maliday with these beasts). I'm going to suggest you also check for voltage at the headlight plug and test the bulbs. I'm hoping it is the fuse for your sake (and it wouldn't surprise me either) but you might have a bit more work ahead of you. You mention a glass fuse behind the head light and "automotive type" fuses in the fuse block. I'm a bit confused as I'm familiar with about 4 different types of fuses currently used in automobiles. Are your fuse box fuses still the glass type or are they the 2 pronged blade fuses? If they are the blade type, your fuse box has been updated and you may have to pull it out to check that the wiring behind it has not been messed up (darn do-it-yourselfer's). You mentioned a turn light that came on and stayed on. That indicates that one of your bulbs burned out or corrosion is inhibiting the circuit. Pull the lenses and the bulbs on that side of the bike and check the socket out. I'm going to guess that your dash lights are all burned out or your fuse block has caused your problem. You have a bit to look at now and I'll leave you at that. Let us know what you find and if you need more guidance, I'm sure we will be able to help you along. Welcome once again.

 

yea welcome!

also check the wattagew of the turn isignal bulbs

they wont blink unless they have 25 watts or more.

i have that problem now and cant find 27 watt bulba anywhere!

 

Good morning to all, thank you so much for helping me out and giving me some areas to look at. I will certainly look into all the aspects with in a few days from now and hopfully find the problem.

Just to update on the fuses, they are the plastic fususes with 2 metal prongs. I have no idea on the history of the bike and if they are the origional fuses or they were changed at some point in time.

The only thing on my mind right now, is to get this bike fixed so that I can get rolling again

Thank you all for the warm welcom to this web site, I am verry impresed so far on how everyone is nice. I will certainly try to help out enyone I can with the cahnges and modofication I have done to my bike.

Have a great day! 8)

 

Im on board with the corrosion, on this one. The flasher on these bikes uses a bi-metallic strip, so unless enough current is being pulled through it to heat it up enough to break contact, it aint gonna blink. And since as resistance goes up, amperage goes down... alittle corrosion here or there and you get a bike with both blinkers lit, and no blinking... if it only happened at idle, i would check your charging system, but it sounds like you eliminated that.

Use your multimeter and a wiring diagram and trace all connections checking for excessive resistance in the lines (generally .5-.3 ohms is acceptable, although .5 is somewhat high.)

 

Hello all, I did some testing and some looking arounf on my bike today. Here are a few things I found and I have attached some pictures to go along with this post.

I found a lot of corrosion on the back left flasher buld connection, I will be ordering a new one soon. I also notice that the front left flasher uses a 2 filament bulb. I am wondering if that would be the source of my problem, since that is the only one like that. All of the other flashers have a single filament bulb.

I still have not found anything to fix my headlight and instrument panel, but I think I will have to take it all appart to see inside. In the worst case I will bring it to a bike shop to see if they know what the problem is. I realy hate doing that because I don't want it to cost me big money.

Regads. 8)

 

Humm, looks like the file attachments did not work, so I will poste the pictures in my gallery. Fell free to take a look, thank you.

 

Both your front bulbs should be the 1157 dual filament bulbs. Be sure to observe the bayonet lug fitment as one is higher than the other and the bulb only works correctly when it is seated in the correct orientation. As for your panel, fear not, you have all you need to pull it off and open it up. I am assuming you don't have the new XJCD (offered at the top of the xjchat forum, a wise investment) or other service manual, so my advice to you is to get one straight away. With it you will banish the fears of tearing into your bike and the worry of spending big dollars at the dealer will fade. At the very least you will be able to converse with your mechanic in terms that make sense to both of you in an intelligent fashion. Your problem is not difficult, just time consuming (if you haven't patients, read on). If you haven't the time, take it in now. Good luck to you, I don't think you'll have too much trouble pulling this one off.

 

By the way, I checked out your pictures and noticed you have a fuse block like the one on my '90 FZR. I had the contacts in it go bad so it would be a point of concern to me. A gentle cleaning with a pink pencil eraser (thats right, a pencil eraser) on your contacts should clean them up very nicely. You can extract the fuse box contacts with a small screwdriver and a careful eye. I would suggest you get some contact cleaner and douche the handle bar switch and the fuse box with the fuses pulled. Another point, your lady friend looks right pretty on that fine bike, congratulations to you on good taste in both.

 

Hello all, I just wanted to let you know that the electrical problem is resolved on my bike. I must say that I worked realy hard for a week, to find what was wrong and then I just gave up. I brought the bike to a local guy that specialises in old bikes. Look's like I was not looking in the right area for the problem. There was a cut wire on the right side handle bar, insed the starter switch. Once that was fixed, the headlight, aux. light and instrument panel lights were working again. Apperently there was a faulty ground in the front left flasher, the flasher that I changed last year, hence causing the flasher to stay ''on'' but not ''flash''. It was working fine for all this time until the negative started touching the positive, in the inside connector. It is a cheap flasher unit, with three wires inside. I will definatly chage it and get a better one to ovoid this problem again.

Well that prety much sum's it up for that and the fact that it cost 115$ to get it fixed. It is not so bad considering I spent a week looking for the problem. I know some of you may say that it is a lot of money, but I did give it my best, but sometimes you have to leave it to the pros!

On that note, take care and talk to you soon. 8)

 

Wise is the man who knows when to say when. I agree with your call Fred, you gotta be able to decide when to cut your losses and know when you have reached the point of diminishing returns. $115 sounds pretty reasonable to me. I got my 81 XJ650H Max for $250 because the fellow couldn't figure out he pinched the kill switch wire in the handlebar cluster (sound familiar?). Do you know anything about electricity? I can tell you it is a very easy thing to talk about but is quite a challenge when you face it in application. Your system found a ground through the turnsignal, who would have thought about that happening? I wouldn't have even suggested it. I of course assumed that the electrical wiring was sound and undisturbed. That path to ground is what messed up the logical trouble shooting. If the incorrect wiring hadn't introduced the "mystery" ground, the broken wire would have been fairly easily found. Well, you can't win them all, we did try but the forum does have it's limitations (we can't see all that you see, we need you to be the eyes and ears for us). Maybe we'll redeem ourselves next time.

 

Front turn signals don't work as running lights

Hi,
I'm a new owner of an '83 XJ750. I couldn't be happier. A buddy pointed out to me during a nighttime ride that my front signals don't stay on as running lights. (they act like rear turn signals) I'm pretty sure that they are aftermarket lights. The bulbs are single filament and their is only one contact in the socket. I wonder if their is a wire crossed somewhere that causes them to flash on as a signal as oppossed to flash off from a running light (if that makes sense)
Any thoughts?
-Moe

 

If your system is like the previous years, the front lights would have been the dual filament 1157 bulb. If I understand your question correctly, it would be possible to have a single filament act as a running light/flasher with the correct flasher/interuptor relay/diode circuit. I'm not terribley up on the details of how to convert a non-running light system to one that does and I'm a little short on the time scale or I'd jump all over this. It should be a very simple modification as all the needed circuitry/wiring are in place already, one just needs to know how to wire in the appropriate interuptor circuit.

 

Hey MoeSyzlak, welcome to the site.
I have a '82 XJ750RJ and my front signal lights only come on when the turn signal is selected. They are also only single filament bulbs. I don't think Yamaha set these up to be running lights.