Read a novel/Help a noob

So I got my XJ650 back from the shop two days ago after having it in the shop for 2 months (whole other story). I let my girlfriend get on it and pick it up, only to realize she forgot to put the kickstand down and drops the bike. This shattered the front left turn signal/cracked the rear. Instead of ordering the stock ones (big and ugly, in my opinion) I opted for smaller aftermarket ones.

I began disconnecting the front left blinker, and as I pulled it from the little stalk it is connected to, it pulled the wire from whatever it was connected to inside of the headlight. I open the headlight only to find 4 or 5 little connectors with nothing plugged into them. I found a wiring diagram and saw that the left front blinker goes to brown, so I put the black/white striped wire of the new blinker into brown, and then just started putting the ground (black) wire on the new blinker into some of those unused connectors. Eventually it seemed to work, and both the front and back blinker would blink (though I was still using the stock blinker on the rear left side at the time). However, something that confused me was that there was only one brown wire running into my left blinker, and there are two wires (red and black) powering my right blinker. Anyways.



So I figured cool, it seems to work. Then I began disconnecting the rear left blinker, and noticed that the stock blinker was being grounded by hooking the ground wire to a little washer, and putting that around the threads on the stalk of the blinker. I'm confused about how to replicate that with my new blinker, that just has a black and black/white striped wire coming out. I tried many combinations of wiring/grounding methods, but every combination only resulted in a solid light from both blinkers when I would turn them on. Note: These do not appear to be LED blinkers.




I'm terrible with wiring. It was one of the reasons I sent my bike to the shop, so I will admit I know very little about it. However, there don't seem to be many reputable mechanics around, and I refuse to send it back where I just got it from. They quoted me a week, and took two months to check valve clearances/clean carbs/do a little bit of wiring for my taillight.

Thank you very much for your time. This is my first bike, and I've been simply dying to ride it, but i'm very cautious of safety, and issue after issue seems to come up and prevent me from getting out on the road.

 

The stock signal lights are normally grounded through the metal housing of the light. With the plastic housing of the replacement light as shown in the pic. It will be necessary to run a second wire to provide a ground to make the light work. That wire should be attached somewhere to the frame of the bike.

The power leads for the rear turn signals should be located under the seat attached to the plastic inner fender by a snap clip.

Brown = Left Turn
Green = Right Turn

Stop wasting your time, and money taking the bike to a shop. Most either don't know, or don't care enough to worry about fixing an older bike.

Post any questions you might have here. Some one will be around to give you the information you need to be able to take care of any problem you may have with the bike.

Ghost

 

Sorry about the bad pictures. In the bottom picture of my first post, the wire in the bottom right corner is the brown wire that is supposed to power the rear left turn signal. I've tried hooking that to the black/white wire from the new blinker, then grounding both the black wire from the bike and the black wire from my blinker to the frame, and I only get a solid light. I've also tried hooking the black wire from my blinker to the brown wire, then grounding the other two wires and get nothing.

I feel like my rear blinker has to be the problem, because when I first started hooking the front left blinker up, I managed to find a method of connecting the wires to where both front and rear lights would blink. Then I tried that same combination while experimenting with the newly added rear blinker, and have had no success.

 

That is because you have change the curcuit. The stock curcuit requires 54 watts of current in order for the signal stat/relay to function properly. The new lights use lower wattage bulbs, and will not trigger the relay. To correct this you will need to get an electronic relay. In doing this. You will most likely lose the self canceling function of the turn signals. This is the same problem that guys run into when they change to the LED Lights.


Ghost

 

Is it possible to use the bulbs from the old lights? If not, can you point me in the direction of the relay I would need?

 

If the "bulbs from the old lights" physically fit the sockets and signal cases then certainly. Those bulbs are automotive 1156's (or 1157's if dual filament) and commonly available.

It's quite common for aftermarket units to come with cheapo 13W or 18W bulbs; mine came with 23W bulbs that didn't draw enough to flash.

If you swap out the relay you'll lose the self-cancelling feature.

 

Ok. i'll be sure to try tomorrow. But if they dont fit, what relay will I need, and where can I get it?

 

Metal_bob's write up on getting things to work with LED lights will give you the info that you need.

100% LED lighting FINALLY COMPLETE and WORKING!

Ghost

 

I apologize, but would someone mind giving me a little info on how to install that relay? Like I said before, I am awful with wiring, and I didn't see much information on installation in that thread.

 

You are looking for this black box



Change it out with the new electronic flasher unit that you got.

While you are at it.
You can remove the cancelling unit.

 

So the relay arrived today. I think i'm doing it right, but it came with extra wires that i'm unsure of what to do with. All I've done so far is replace the old square one with the new round one. I tried touching the wires together on the left blinkers to see if I got any blinking, but now even the light on the dash wont light up indicating the blinkers are on.

extra wires?

 

I just replaced my rear turn signals with aftermarket ones. This thread helped http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=4489.html

 

Awesome, I think I should be able to get it going if I can just get those wires out of the stock plastic holder thing. They're in there good

 

Yeah, right now I feel like i'm destroying that plastic piece that holds the 3 wires I need to rearrange. Does anyone have any tips on getting those wires out?

 

Soooo, after getting fed up, I went to autozone and got the EL13 model relay recommended in the thread above, and sure enough, it worked! I was on cloud nine for about a half hour while I soldered up the first three blinkers, testing them along the way to make sure they worked. I knew, however, that I couldn't go too long working on this bike without finding a hitch. As I connected the last blinker, something stupid happened, and now whenever I turn my key to the on position, I blow a 15A fuse. I was sooo close to having a fully functional bike again. What happened?

 

Usually you can just turn the connector 90 deg so the yellow / green is not connected, bit late for that now, though.

 

Bump. I've got the day off and would love to keep working on getting my bike on the road, but I've hit a dead end and have no idea where to go from here.

 

During the last thing you did wires became shorted or something else got pulsed and has failed. Your sending too much voltage down the pipe that's why your fuse keeps blowing. >15A is flowing.

Wiring can be extremely frustrating because it only takes one simple mistake and you can burn something out or get no connection at all. But do yourself a favor and realize the progress you were making and realize that it CAN BE FIXED. Go back over your last actions and inspect that thoroughly to see what might have gotten crossed or otherwise shorted together. Get back your piece of mind before you try and tackle it and just go slow. You will figure it out.

One thing to keep in mind is to always disconnect your battery & make sure the key is in the off position while you make your connections or solder any wires.