First day out

Jakeyz333 · Post by **Jakeyz333** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:29 am

Ive been struggling with this bike and all the paper work for a little over two years now. Today was the maiden voyage on the street. All seemed to be fine short of my tuning capabilities when it comes to carburetors but im learning. After work i went to go home and it was about midnight so i turned the lights on and the headlamp was very dim and if i switch to high beams the headlight goes off and the red light lights up on the tach. Also im not sure if the bike has tach and speedo lamps or not, if so they are not working either, bike seems to be a mess on wiring. Either way i removed the headlight bezel and realized how loose all the screws were. I tightened it down and tried the light and it was much brighter and seemed healthy, as for the gauge lights (if any) nothing, and high seems to dim the headlight. Any advice is greatly appreciated. - thanks jacob

Post by **Alan H** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:41 am

Sounds like you need to check the bike is charging and clean EVERY connection especially the earths. Just take each connection apart individually, clean it and put it back. Do you have a multimeter?
Put it on DC volts and connect it across the battery with the engine running. What does it read? Rev the engine to about 3-3500 and see what it reads. Make sure the battery has acid/water in between the min and max lines.
The main beam is a higher wattage than dip so if you have poor connections/dud battery/not charging that's why it goes very dim.

dyrberg123 · Post by **dyrberg123** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:46 am

Are you sure the wires for high and low havn't been switched? Have you a wire diagram avalible? That could be helpfull, if not there is a thread inhere some where with most bikes. Just can't find it now

If any one havn't found it before monday when i am back at Work i can scan in a copy of mine. Have you checked that the dim actually goes out when you put on high, i have tried a bike where when high was turned on dim didn't go off, taking so much power togheter is gave less light as dim alone. I think it was a ground problem..

Post by **Alan H** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:40 am

This might help. Favourites are poor connections/earths and failing/dry battery.

Fritz500 · Post by **Fritz500** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:40 am

Don't use that previous diagram. Way too confusing. Use this one. Uses everyday terms and none of that "correct electrical terminology" nonsense.

dyrberg123 · Post by **dyrberg123** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:57 am

You just made me laugh

. That could also come in handy for Jacob, as often electrical problems ain't that funny.

Hal_396 · Post by **Hal_396** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:41 am

Fritz500 wrote:Don't use that previous diagram. Way too confusing. Use this one. Uses everyday terms and none of that "correct electrical terminology" nonsense.

Now that is funny

jabcb · Post by **jabcb** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 6:19 am

LOL (by an old person who shouldn't really be using it)
Moral rectifier … got to keep those electrons going where they should.

More seriously, first steps:
Charge up your battery. no point in ruining the battery while you figure out whats wrong.

As Alan suggested, check voltage at battery.
With light off: engine off, @ idle, & at higher rpm
With lights on: repeat.

The alternator has separate charging coil & lighting coil.
So everything might be ok when lights are off, but not when lights are on.

Jakeyz333 · Post by **Jakeyz333** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 9:40 pm

I got 12.82 with engine and lights off and 12.69 with lights on low beams. And for some reason I now cannot get the bike started at all. It started fine yesterday after work and I just now tried it again. Any ideas? *update I got the headlight working now the bike just won't start. What could have caused this I've been only in the headlight bucket the whole time.

jabcb · Post by **jabcb** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:47 am

on charging…..
Those voltage numbers are reasonable for low rpm (~ @ idle).

With a fully charged battery, the voltage will gradually rise as you increase rpm.
With lights on you should get over 14V at 5k rpm.

on not starting…..
Make sure you still have a spark.
You may have dome something to the ignition wiring when you worked on the headlight wiring.

Jakeyz333 · Post by **Jakeyz333** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:26 am

What exactly could I have done to the ignition wiring. Its kind of a wiring nightmare this thing.. And now I'm back to no headlight and no ignition. This just purely makes absolutely no sense.. I didn't disconnect anything or pull anything apart that wasn't already disconnected.
If you guys haven't seen my other post about the bike shop really giving it to me good...the wiring they did for the turn signals is absolutely ridiculous and I'm starting to get really upset with them. My mailman (funny story) knows a guy who worked on these bikes overseas. He's coming over next Sunday to really give it a once over and go thru the list from the bike shop item by item to see if they really did what they said. If it turns out all they did was put tires turn signals and a chain on it (which is what its starting to look like) might be in for the small claims court. Regardless I hope to have this headlight and running issue solved before then. Thanks guys

titan performance · Post by **titan performance** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 2:45 pm

So what did you actually do to get the headlamp functioning Jake? You said you got it working, but didn't say how?
It sounds like loose or dirty connection/s somewhere, which can be a sod to find.....but on the bright side, these bikes are quite straight forward. I had similar issues once, when the 4 wire block connector on the back of the ignition switch went bad.......I ended taking one of the wires out of the block and by-passing it.

Jakeyz333 · Post by **Jakeyz333** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:00 pm

II found looseconnections a white wire with a red sleeve on it and connected that as well as a single male connector black with white. I'm not sure which on it was but the headlight seemed to be functioning. As I returned this morning I can no longer get the headlight to illuminate nor can I get the bike started whatsoever. I know its something in the headlight bucket. I have picture but I can't upload says its too big. I'm getting tail lights and turn signals. But no headlight. There is also an orange with with a dual female connection which is completely disconnected and no orange wires to be found. I think I may have disconnected the wiring from the off/run switch. Not 100% sure though. Not very wise with wiring.

Jakeyz333 · Post by **Jakeyz333** » Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:01 pm

Anyone have any ideas for me?

jabcb · Post by **jabcb** » Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:33 pm

The unswitched hot wire from the battery + terminal is red.
That goes to the ignition switch.
The switched hot wires that power the bike are orange.

The orange wires in your headlight bucket are part of the network of orange wires that are switched hot wires.

The wiring diagram in this topic is for an early T500 that does not have a engine kill switch.
The diagram shown below is for a newer T500 with the kill switch.

I suspect that you are right in that the wires in the headlight bucket are not connected correctly.
Would be really useful to see pics of what you have.

Try using Microsoft Paint to reduce the pic size so you can upload them.
Or create a Photobucket account & upload your pics to that site. You can then provide links to those pics.

Sorry for the bad pic:

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