Headlight

My headlight is not working. Im trying to make sense with the wiring diagram but im totally clueless. My headlight bucket is a mess, therre is a few bullet connectors missing connections, a few are black, one is red, and one is light blue.
I checked for power at the headlight with a multimeter and there is none. I traced the wire to the lefthandle bar high/low switch. There is 2 wires that feed to the headlight, and a bluewire with a black stripe, which had no power. I traced the blue/black wire to the left side panel, under the ignitor, where it plugs into what i think is a relay? There are 4 wires into a small box, on is red and has power, one is black and the two others are getting no power.
Is a 1981 xj650 maxim

 

650ser,

Repost this in the CHAT FORUM. Is your battery fully charged? What does your fuse box look like? Are you getting power across your headlight fuse? Do you have power to your flashers and horn? Sounds like a ground issue. Is your BATTERY ground and EARTH (the black ground on the left side of your bike down and to the left of the regulator that looks like the ground off your battery) solid connections? The double black (ground), red (hot) and blue (tail light) bullet connections are extra. Should you chose to make your flashers "running lights" you could tie into the blue wire with the existing power and ground. Hope this helps.

Gary

 

IF your bike is one of those equipped with a headlight relay, there will be no power to the headlight until the engine is running.

 

Yes I have power to horn and signal but there no power to the headlight
How to I. Heck if there power across the headlight fuse can you explain more kinda losf thx

 

You need the wiring diagram for your bike and a multimeter. The headlight itself does not get any power until the engine is running, it is operated by a relay. You will have power to turn signals and taillight with the engine off, not to the headlight. Once the engine starts, the headlight relay "latches" on, and the light will stay on (even if the engine stalls) until the key is turned off.

 

How will I check if there any power coming to the headlight while the engine running

 

Start it up in Neutral and use your MultiM to check between the black terminal and the top (low) beam terminal with the Hi/Lo switch on 'Lo'.

The wires in your bucket are almost all idiot proof in that each set coming in has it's own unique connector, the ones that don't are pretty simple like the double black bullet ground for your blinkers, should be single bullets for your blinkers +12V-may be brown and green, but not sure for your model.

On the headlight connector there is black (ground) which is shared by many components, including blinkers, indicator lights, meter lights, etc., the top wire (middle) is your low beam (might be dark green) and the other is high beam (yellow?). If you have a relay (think you do-it's what you found) then the other wire from your Hi/Lo switch (blue/w black) goes to the relay-the relay has 3 other wires, black (same shared ground), white (goes to diode block in bucket), and red (+12V from fuse block). The diode block (a one way transfer switch) is what triggers the relay to release +12V into the blue/w black wire once the engine starts.

Like BF said you will need a hardcopy or virtual copy of a manual for your bike to really make progress, there will be other uses for it in the future for sure. At the very least you need the wiring diagram for your bike. It might help you to do what I did when I picked up my XJ-I went through each wire/connector and untangled and cleaned them all with wd-40, then exposed raw metal with some emery cloth and smeared them all with di-electric grease.

Your headlight bulb might be burnt out also.

 

Hey 650ser, I was just dealing with a problem like this last week. Exactly what model XJ do you have and what year?

 

I have a 1981 xjmaxim I'm stilling waiting for my relay hopefully that's the case