Headlight staying on.

this happend to me when i was changing out the fuse panel on my 83 midnight. i used the wrong kind of fuse box. i think it could be a fuse issue like it was on my bike.

 

Power goes from the main fuse to the ignition switch. It comes back out from the ignition switch on a brown wire which goes back to the fuse box and is then split into separate fused circuits for the ignition, headlamp, etc.

It occurred to me that you can simply unplug the ignition switch. If the motorcycle will still run then you know that there is mischief with the wiring.

 

Sounds like a problem I had. The key wouldn't turn the engine off. Turned out to be a short in the ignition plug in the wiring harness inside the headlight bucket. It was very hard to spot. The red and brown wires in the plug were not actually touching but were close enough to short. The only way to kill the engine was to pull the leads from the battery. In the end the real culprit was a bad voltage regulator that caused some of my wires to over heat and deform.

 

Thanks for all the good info. I am going to print all these posts and when I get to tearing into it, I will check one by one.

 

I had a similar problem on my 85 Maxim X and the problem was a connector in the headlight bucket that had overheated and looking at it you'd think nothing was wrong, but upon close inspection the insulation between the wires in the connector was melted enough to keep the bike and all lights running after the key was shut off. Look for a white male/ female connector that has a slight brown look to it. I had to cut it apart as the plastic had "Welded" itself together, ended up putting "Bullet" connectors (difficult] on and it solved the problem.

 

Hey, just went to "Search" for my old post on this, here's the link:
http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2 ... =shut.html
The search tools is your best friend.