Idiot Lights

[gareth]

My red oil light on the pilot box was on constantly so today was the day when I decided to track down why.

I did a search and one poster mentioned how his PO had wired the tailights directly to the fusebox bypassing the Light Checker. It was the same on my bike...I unhooked the light checker unit and jumped the oil light lead directly to the black-red line on the harness connector. Hey-presto things seem normal now. Red light shines and goes out a few moments after start-up..

Questions;

Where should the blue wire from the tail be hooked up to in order to get me back to stock if I wanted to do so?

Is the "headlight" idiot light supposed to be on all the time when the lights are on, or just when they "fail"? ( I don't want to pull the cluster to check bulbs and continuity if I don't have to...)

Any downside to running without the light checker? Do any other vital things run through this thing? I pulled and tossed the Reserve lighting unit. There are a couple of post about splicing a couple of connections in there, (blue-black with blue-yellow & yellow with blue-green ) but the bike works fine even without these connections, so what gives?

Thanks for any info..

Gareth.

[thewiz]

Gareth ...

what bike?

[John]

The headlight warning lamp should glow very dimly if it is working properly. The blue wire in the harness is the tail light wire.

[gareth]

It's a 1979 Special...

G.

[thewiz]

In addition to what John has said ...

When I toss an RLU, I always splice the wires as in the tech tips. Don't know exactly why, but I do.

Also that red 'oil light' will indicate an inoperative horn, or stoplight switch.

[Winterhawk]

The headlight warning lamp should glow very dimly if it is working properly. The blue wire in the harness is the tail light wire.

Sorry to bring up an old post, is this true? my warning lamp flickers lightly. I changed out the RLU, Good headlight and connections. No other lights flicker. The tach needle does act weird. My 2nd tach and both did the same. Related maybe? It's charging great and no other problems.

[jayel]

Sorry to bring up an old post, is this true? my warning lamp flickers lightly. I changed out the RLU, Good headlight and connections. No other lights flicker. The tach needle does act weird. My 2nd tach and both did the same. Related maybe? It's charging great and no other problems.

check your grounds, a couple under one end of the voltage reg/rec, may be another between engine and frame under the air cleaner box and battery frame ground

[Winterhawk]

My headlight is staying on when I turn the key to on with the bike not running. I think that the Voltage Regulator shorted out. Barely made it home from work at midnight. The large battery saved me. This could explain the tach stopped working maybe. My headlight relay was really hot as with the key off it clicks when I plug it in. Going to try the green to ground before looking for another one today.