My headlights, horn, and my front and rear turn signals do not work and I don't understand why.

I recently purchased my first bike for 300 dollars (1980 yamaha xj750 maxim). I spent half of the summer trying to fix the darn thing and now it is running beautifully aside from dark and mysterious forces that disable some pretty essential components. I ran through all the wires and found nothing cut or damaged, and yes I did check the fuses. I even moved them around for better connection. Last week my friend and I were syncing the carburetor and rode it around for a test drive. When we parked it back into the garage, he walked in front of it and bonked the front headlight. Then, for a few minutes everything was fine. It was almost like looking at suburbia decorated for Christmas. All the lights (including the horn) worked. After turning it off and back on again, everything was dark again. Either my friend is the physical embodiment of mjulnir or something made a connection allowing everything to work.

 

did you replace your fuse box? you should if you are using glass fuses still.

trace out the wireing diagram

 

Take out the headlamp. Inspect and clean all connections. Just about everything eventually goes into the rat's nest we call a headlight assembly.

 

I will try that this weekend. Thank you for your help!

 

I'm having a similar issue. I'm sitting with the bike running, but the headlight is off. Cleaning the connection to the headlamp, but all the other connections are great because I put all new ones in.

 

1. start a thread.
2. does the headlight itself test good when connected directly to a battery?

 

have you checked for voltage at the headlight socket?