Auto cancel blinker problem

Ok, I've read several threads about the signals and the flasher relay and the canceller. Oh, btw the deal is mine never cancel.

For the sake of argument, let's say the problem isn't the flasher or the cancellor(I have original flasher, if I run 12V to the "C" pin it cancels, and I have two cancellers, while I'm not sure how to test them, unlikely that both are bad?)

Anyway, here is what it does, oh and I know, I can cancel them myself, I have a stick up my ass for having EVERYthing work on the bike, also, I feel like an idiot when I cancel them and go right past the off position to the other one signalling.

Ok, won't cancel with time or distance, does cancel when you turn the bike off and back on, canceller does send a signal down the Yellow/green wire when the bike is on and the signals have not been activated. Once signals activated, I'm not seeing anything coming from the cancellor(with my test light stuck into the yellow/green wire) I've cleaned up the connections in the headlight bucket and anywhere else I've seen quick-connects, with electrical component cleaner.

I've seen reference to "pushing in" the signal button to cancel, mine doesn't do that, have to slide it slightly in opposite direction to cancel, but it does return to center position after you signal like it's supposed to. My main question would be, how the heck does the time thing work? Is it in the nature of the canceller circuit, does it count blinks or something? I know how the distance thing works, my reed switch looks okay, I plan to double check it.

Well, anybody who's gotten this working, if you have any thoughts. Also, FWIW, on both my cancellers(one from the bike, one from the scrapyard) the wires coming out are black, brown, white with green stripe, white with red stripe, yellow with green stripe, yellow with red stripe, which is different than what chacal lists on another thread, where the more common colors are apparently to have two wires with white/green and no yellow/red. beats me.

Edit: yes, I'm running stock blinkers.

 

just remove them, they are unwanted weight anyway, FTP.

 

as far as legality, you're talking to a guy who got pulled over two days in a row for no front license plate on his car, I agree with the sentiment, but not gonna give 'em an excuse by removing signals all together Although you can do it in Oregon, you just can't drive at night.

 

The reed switch in the speedo sends a count signal to the cancler unit. It counts the wheel revolutions then turns off the signals after a number of wheel revolutions. I have had several of the reed switches go bad. You can check it by jumping across the switch like you are turning it on anf off. You might have to do this 20 times or more. The cancler should turn off the blinkers after 20 or so switch counts.
Take apart your handle bar switch assembly to clean and lube the contacts. Sounds like there may be a contact there that is not opening/closing.

 

Right, I'll try the reed switch jumper thing, but I'm under the impression that there is a strictly time-based cancel also, like, say I'm sitting still and the signal is blinking, you're saying it won't cancel unless I move? That's not what I thought I've been reading, but it cuts down the number of things to check.

 

Two conditions must exist concurrently for the signal to cancel.

10 sec. must have elapsed.

150 ft. must have been traveled.

If either of these conditions don't exist, the signals will remain on.

So if you are going more than 10 mph, it will go for 10 s, but if you are stopped at a stoplight it will stay on till you move again.

 

If it is a push to cancel set up, which I believe it is disassemble the left side assemble that hold the turn signal switch and clean it out. There is a small ball bearing backed by a spring in the rear of the unit that may be filled wil junk that is preventing the push to cancel from working. I just cleaned mine out and noticed a difference in how easily the switch moved left to right and pushed to cancel. I also put grease on the metal of the switch that actuates the push to cancel to make it smother and prevent the metal to metal contact of the parts. It is not a complicated thing to disassemble, about three sub-assemblies, but they are fairy intuitive in terms of how they go back together. You can't really put them back in the wrong order.

 

There was a lot of gunk around the springs that re-set the signal lever to center, so that's all clean, all the switch contacts etc. inside signal switch. Does push to cancel now(you push it down to cancel, really) but still no self cancel.

The reed switch seems to be fine, I tried the jumper thing, no dice, and I can hear the switch opening and closing when I spin the speedo.

Next two questions would be:
1. Does the bike need to be running to cancel?

2. should there be voltage at the wire going to the reed switch?
'cuz there isn't.

I can't figure out which wires are hot from the canceller from the wiring diagram, not sure if it's just measuring resistance or actually sending a signal to that switch somehow. I'm trying to understand which wires from the canceller are hot at "rest" and when the signals are blinking, so I can test each wire while it's plugged in in different states and see if there is a break in a wire somewhere. Like if voltage is coming out of the white/black wire at the canceller but I'm not getting any voltage at the other end of that wire, then that would be the problem, or also, which wires are hot going into the canceller, I know a few of them, the yellow/green sends a signal to the flasher, black is ground, etc.

 

I believe your bike, because of the year and the fact that you have the small bearing that is spring baced, has a push to cancel function. As far as I know my FJ600 an 84' model has only push to cancel and no automatic stop to the blinkers.

If it is a push to cancel switch, and it sounds like it is, you should be able to put a singnal on and the just push the button that you used to activate the signal and moves left and right to activate the signal straight in as if you were pushing it out the front of the box it is in.

Test and see if that works for you and let me know. If it does it will be, at least, a little eaiser than remembering to slide it back to the center (off) position.

 

I'm confused, there seems to be a communication problem. I said the push to cancel is working in my last post, I'll clarify.

When the switch is in the middle position and the signal(either one) is blinking, if you push the button straight down, it cancels. Not in, but down, that's how it's built, it even has an arrow pointing straight down on the button, and the part inside the switch assembly that has the spring and is moved to center to cancel is centered by the action of moving the plastic switch toward the ground, not toward the headlight, which would be my definition of "pushing a button in" I could take pictures, but none of this is really the issue, just more info in case somebody has a similar setup. I was trying to push the button straight in to cancel, not built that way. (on my bike)

 

Sorry for my confusion. Best of luck. I know little to nothing about the electrical systems. That is something, knock on wood, that I have never had to troubleshoot. Best wishes

 

Not to bump my own topic, but after putting bike back together yesterday, (was doing some cleaning up and tracking down leaks) rode it and signals were canceling on right turns only? Then on the way home not cancelling at all again, what do you think? Maybe bad connection somewhere, switch at handlebar has been cleaned up, reed switch is good, canceler is good as far as I know. Real pain this is.

Also, no idea why this is under XJ modifications, I meant to post it in XJ chat.

 

If the push switch on the bars cancels and the automatic canceller doesn't then there's only one place the problem is going to be.. The reed switch marked 43 on the circuit diagram.

This runs into the cancelling unit on the white/green wire and is not direction sensitive (there's only one switch, which completes the same circuit when you turn the bars in either direction) which means if the reed switch works in one direction but not the other, then the reed switch is either faulty, dirty or not completing the contact properly for some other reason.. A loose connection will not cause this behaviour.

I suggest you try switching the reed switch manually in both directions, see if it works properly and cancels the indicator, if it does, then the problem is probably the way you've mounted it or the thing that pushes against it.. If it doesn't then the problem is most likely with the switch itself, in which case you could try cleaning the contacts internally, live with the fault or get a replacement reed switch. (I'm not near my bike, so I can't see the mechanics of it)

Either way, this is where your problem is going to be, the Reed switch.. The symptoms you've described don't allow for anything else to be the cause, even the wiring loom.

 

I got side-tracked on oil leak issues, but now I'm back to this. I am pretty sure I've eliminated the reed switch as a problem. I'm not sure what you mean by "what it pushes against" it's magnetically operated when the cable spins. Anyway I jumper wired past it and opened and closed the circuit manually like 30 times with no canceling.

Nobody seems to know if the bike has to be running to cancel, or, if I should be able to detect voltage at the reed switch with my multimeter, or how to diagnose problems with the canceler. They cancelled that one day as a fluke, but normally it behaves like the canceler isn't even there.(you can unplug canceler and blinkers work normally, on all these bikes, I'm saying, not just mine)

 

All I have in front of me is the wiring diagram for an XJ900. If you ahve the wiring diagram for your bike, post it here and I'll have a look and see if that's different, I've just spent some time looking at the circuit diagram I have. I haven't looked at the bike itself cos I'm busy doing other things, so I'd assumed it was a physical reed switch, in this case what I meant be "what pushes against it" IS the magnet.. It's a magnetic relay switch. The magnet closes or opens the switch and the circuit is made between the earth and the white/green wire in the cancelling unit. The black wire coming out of the reed switch is the same black wire that comes out of the cancelling unit, and goes direct to earth.

Now I'm going to assume something here, that the magnets are at the extremities of the turn, and this causes the circuit to close, tripping a relay within the cancelling unit. You can test what happens by putting an ohmmeter accross the white/green wire going into the reed switch and a black wire and moving the handlebars, you don't need the engine on to see this, nor the ignition... You should see the resistance change from Zero to something approaching infinity and back to near zero.

If the resistance doesn't change, then you've got your culprit. Let me know.

If the resistance changes as expected then back to the cancelling unit, but start there.
The Cancelling unit has 5 wires going into it. White/Green from the reed switch, this eventually ends up at earth, so unplug this wire and short it to earth.. Does the flashing cancel? (It should)
There is a Yellow/Red wire that goes to the handlebar switch, and again, eventually to earth via a black wire. Try the same as above.
There is a Yellow/Green wire which goes to the flasher relay, I assume this is the signal wire.

A black wire that goes to earth, and a Brown wire that goes to the main switch, and carries the voltage direct from the battery, this means that you don't need the engine running to test this, you just need the ignition turned on.

So how to test. Well, first test that the reed switch resistance changes accross the white/green wire and the black wire when you turn the handle bars. This should (if this circuit diagram is to be believed) provide the same behaviour as pressing cancel on the handlebars.

If that's ok, you now need to test the signal on the Yellow/Green wire going into the flasher relay. Now the cancelling unit is a black box on the circuit diagram (well it's white, but I can't see the circuit inside) so initially we'll test to see if it provides a voltage signal instead of a resistance change, you don't want to short circuit the battery. So switch your multimeter to the 20V range and turn the ignition on, (you don't need to start the engine) and switch the handlebar switch and then turn the handlebars. Did you get a signal for one, but not the other, or both? or Nothing.

Ok, if nothing, then we need to test for a resistance change. So switch back to resistance, and try flicking the switches. If the problem here isn't the reed switch, then either the voltage or the resistance may change for one but not the other.. If this is the case for both cancelling units, then perhaps the white/green wire from the cancelling unit to the reed switch is corroded, test that.

All this should provide you with enough information to say for sure where the issue is. Post your results back here if you're still stuck and I'll compare them with my bike.. Something will be different.

 

Okay, some good info there, a couple things...

How the reed switch operates is that the turning of the speedometer cable turns the magnet that opens and closes the switch, that's what I meant about jumping wires across it, the canceler has to count several openings and closings of the reed switch(It's distance based, not handlebar position, in other words), so to test resistance as you suggested, (I'm only putting this in for people who want to do the same thing) the best method is to manually turn the speedo cable at the wheel(after detaching it from the hub) all the while keeping an eye on your ohmometer.

Today it occurred to me that I had seen another post on another site where the guy said his switch was messed up so the canceller thought the switch was in the "on" position, in other words, not returning to center, so the canceler thinks you are manually holding the switch to the left or right.

Based on that, today I rode it, making sure that the switch was dead center after initiating the signal, I found that doing that it will cancel most of the time, so I will be re-opening the switch(I already had it apart, cleaning it, that's how I got the "push to cancel" to work) when I'm in there I'm gonna see if the contacts are touching when they shouldn't be.

Regardless, I'm closing in on it, this is a unique feature to these bikes and I want it to work, reliably.
Edit: here wiring diagram from my gallery. I merged the left and right pics in photo editing software.
http://xjbikes.com/coppermine/displayim ... ize=1.html

 

OK.. Well the wiring diagram is completely different.

Hmm.. Interestng.. I was wondering about that, I'd figured it tripped after you straightened the bars, which is why I was expecting a physical switch rather than magnetic.. Where's the sensor? Top or bottom, or have they done something wierd and mounted it half way? Have you figured out how many pulses/turns of the wheel it takes to trip it?

I was planning on swapping out my speedo for an electronic one at some point, which will break this, unless the sensor is at the hub, in which which case, maybe I can find an old speedo cable that I can castrate to just long enough.. However I recon it's in the dash, which would be the sensible place to put it, and would screw up my plans if I want to keep this feature..

 

Yeah, the reed switch is mounted to the back of the speedo, right above where the cable enters it, the same round magnet that turns the housing attached to the needle toggles the reed switch. I'm not sure how many pulses it takes to cancel. Manual says 10 seconds or 490 feet. So how every many times the cable spins in 490 feet.

 

Intereting..

490 feet in 10 sec is 33 mph... They're expecting you to be going pretty fast.
490 feet is also about 50 wheel spins.. Don't know how many pulses you get per turn of the wheel, probably only one or two.

So you've got to have a little trip computer in the cancelling unit that counts 100 pulses and 10 seconds from the first pulse, and then cancels on the first (or last?) of these to pass..

This is early 80's technology, the era of the zx81 computer.. Clever for it's time, but never designed to last nearly 30 years on the front of a motorbike.. I'm really not surprised it's not working well.. But since it appears to be the reed switch, and not the cancelling unit, that's fubar'd, perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to judge..

Keep us posted as you go.. My canceller is working, I was surprised by it because I didn't know the bike had one when I got it and thought the indicator was faulty!! I'd offer to sell the dash to you in its entirety, but it's in kmph, not much good in the US.

 

I know, right? On my second XJ, auto cancel hasn't worked yet. My solution: take off the turn signals, use your hands.