'82 750 Maxim Tail light warning on, but tail light works.

The tail light warning is on on my bike, but the tail is working just fine, both of them. It is causing the warning light to flash and its driving me nuts! Anybody have any ideas?

 

Bad connection/old bulb causing the current draw to go out of spec? May be worth changing to a new bulb at the same time as checking/cleaning the connections in the holder as I've experienced indicator bulbs that did this trick, got old & although they worked fine they no longer drew enough current to trip the flasher unit for some reason!

 

I'll try cleaning the holders and throwing some new bulbs in, but the bulbs are very bright for both tail and brake and I have a hard time believing they are the problem. Worth a shot though.

 

Worth a shot like you say, if that doesn't cure it & all the contacts are clean (including fusebox, the original fusebox can get crumbly connectors out of the blue so worth a look as it's easy, although I don't think that would cause the problem you have) I'd have to wonder if there was something going on with the Atari itself.

Hopefully someone who's more experienced with the computer will chime in with ideas too, as I don't have this feature on my bike so that's about the limit of my ideas for this fault

 

Re: '82 750 Maxim Tail light warning on, but tail light work

I am having the same issue, so I was hoping that you would share the outcome of your troubleshooting please.

 

Re: '82 750 Maxim Tail light warning on, but tail light work

I am having the same issue, so I was hoping that you would share the outcome of your troubleshooting please.

 

It could be as simple as the Brake Light Element out.
Wrong Bulb.
Dirty Contacts.

Old School Preventive Maintenance said to apply Grease to the Bulbs base too prevent it from rusting and seizing in the Socket.
Dried-up Grease may be causing a circuit to be open.

 

Re: '82 750 Maxim Tail light warning on, but tail light work

I recently repaired one that had the same problem.

The tail light circuit has an in line fuse in the head light bucket. The fuse was bad. A PO had "fixed" the problem by unplugging the tail light from the harness and running a wire to a switched circuit in the fuse box. This bypasses the monitor which turns on the warning because it doesn't detect the tail light load.

It's easy to check for this sort of bypass. Just open the headlight bucket and remove the fuse. If the tail light still works someone has bypassed the fuse.