Neutral Light Blown

Got my bike started for the first time since I bought it. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I put her on the centerstand and revved her up.

I noticed that when I gave it throttle, the neutral light would brighten a lot. I figured it makes sense that the alternator is pushing out more current and maybe ALL the lights would be getting a little brighter. But the only one that was on was my neutral light. (headlight and guage lights not working due to relay). As I put her through the paces, the neutral light got brighter and brighter, and then just went out.

She won't start in gear (gives me the red light), so I think I'm safe to assume the neutral switch itself is still working.

I tried switching the bulbs out, but no luck. I put one of the turn signal bulbs in the neutral spot. And put the neutral bulb in the turn spot. The neutral position still did not light up. But neither did the turn signal with the green bulb in it. So the bulb was blown. But now the socket's not getting any juice.

Ideas?

 

Look inside the headlight housing and other places for possible grounded wiring or water shorted wiring before you cook more stuff...

Check the voltage at the battery while running, see what you get when you rev it. The reg/rec is supposed to hold it back when you rev it. It may not be working, letting full generated volts through.

You shouldn't see more than 14v at the battery...even that would be kinda high for a bike charging system, in my experience anyway...if you see 16-18v or something when you rev it, you've got a reg/rec issue...

 

Do you have a factory manual? If not, PM me with your email address and I can send you the charging system diagnostics flowchart.

 

I didn't think about grounded wiring behind the headlight. Come to think of it, there may have been some exposed connecters that had lost their plastic covering. If this touches the side of the headlight bucket, could it cause something like that?

I do have the factory manual. I have yet to check the voltage at the battery. I'm shimming the valves currently, but thats my first thing to do once I get her running again.

The charging system itself hasn't been working great so far. I've been having some trouble with battery life. This may have been a combination of valves not being shimmed properly, carbs not having been synced, and then trying to quickly charge or jump the battery just trying to get it from place to place.

So now I'm shimming the valves, and replacing the alternator brushes (they were getting pretty low). Then when I get her running I'll double check that voltage across the battery (as well as the rest of the charging system) and check behind the headlight for grounded/shorted wiring.

I do have to say though, that everything else has been running fine electrically. Nothing else seems to be getting an improper amount of current.