The three bulbs that fit into my speedo housing burned out. I think it was because I was riding around with the speedo out for a while... it was being repaired.
When I put the lights back in only one of them (maybe) seemed to work, but who cares, I don't need those lights anyways right?
Well then my headlight started flickering, and finally went out. I need that.
I opened everything up. Headlight filament is fine, so I suspected a bad ground, though the green wire coming off the back of the bulb is grounded, and even when i experimented touching it to other spots it didn't get the headlight on either.
Then i noticed when I touch the hot lead of the high beam light (blue into speedo) to ground, the light went on. Is the headlight really grounded though that extraneous highbeam bulb?
Another odd thing, is when I experimented with touching the hot lead of the other speedo light to ground, it blew my fuse. ? Is that built into the design as well?
I'm gonna replace the bulbs (I figure you can just get em at a hardware/radio shack, right?) but is there a good way to just bypass that and ground the headlight elsewhere? Is it normal for the blue wire to be the ground wire?
Thanks,
Andy
Headlight grounds through Blue Wire/High Beam Light??
Re: Headlight grounds through Blue Wire/High Beam Light??What model are you dealing with? My CA77 speedo light is a green wire and the blue goes to the high beam indicator. Andy,
There is a green wire, with a white band. it attaches to the headlight rim, and grounds to the speedo housing. There is also a series of green wires, no band, that are hot. Sounds to me like you may have mixed those up. Any auto parts store should have the dash bulbs. Try powering the headlight with a direct power source. White = low beam, blue = high beam, green w/ white band = ground. Davo Everything is wired the same as it was before. The only thing I've done is remove the speedo, give it to a guy for repair, and put it back in. Somewhere along the line my three indicator bulbs burnt out, but I replaced them with correct type.
While the speedo was off, the headlight still worked. It was simple grounded via the green wire that comes off the back of the headlight bulb and screws onto the headlight rim. This is something I'm wondering about now. Why isn't that ground alone working anymore?? New weird thing. The high-beam indicator light is ALWAYS on now.... that ain't right at all. AND, the indicator lights don't work at all unless the speedo or tach cables are in... meaning they're grounding through the speedo drive or tach drive, NOT through the speedo bezel/headlight shell. Perhaps the bezel wasn't put together properly by the guy who repaired the speedo and now anything touching the bottom of the speedo doesn't ground anymore.... meaning I just need to attach a new ground wire to the bottom of the speedo. Does anyone have any idea what the f%ck might be going on?
I hate to ask such a fundamental question but you do have the headlight ring grounded to the frame, right? In order to test things with the headlight out of the bike, you have to connect a jumper wire from the headlamp ring to the bike's frame. If the headlamp is not grounded to the headlamp ring and then the bike's frame via the one 6mm screw, the system will function similar to what you are describing with the high beam indicator staying on all the time and alternating between bright and not so bright.
The ground wire for the bulb goes to a terminal on the headlight ring, then another green wire splits off that and goes to the speedo unit. I imagine I could use that second green wire as a jumper for a ground, no?
Also, I've got the whole unit together correctly, headlight on the bike, screwed in, and it still isn't turning on, but the high-beam indicator light is always on. Seeing as how the headlight was working without the speedo in at all, I'm gonna take a few steps back and ignore the speedo and all the indicator bulbs and wires and just focus on try to get the headlight to work on its own. It seems like this should be way more simple than it is. Take the green wire coming off the bulb to ground, and the light should go on, even if the headlight is not on the bike, right?
That green wire that goes to the speedo bulb is a 12V hot wire to light the speedo bulb, not a ground wire. It should not connect to the ground of the headlight ring. The speedo bulb gets its ground through the body of the speedo bulb housing.
My CA77 has a green wire coming off the ingnition switch that is hot only with the ignition in the lights on position. It "T's" off and goes to the speedo bulb and up to the dimmer switch. In the dimmer switch that green power is sent to the headlight through the red wire (low beam) or blue wire (high beam), depending on whether you want high beam or low beam. If high beam, the power goes to the headlight and the high beam indicator bulb via a "T" of the blue wire.
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