Lost Headlights, help

[oldmantwo]

If it isn;t a relay it COULD be a bad spider. One of the ones in the nacelle harness that Yamaha claims doesn't cause any problems HAS caused problems for several owners..

Plug the bike back together, put a voltmeter from battery negative to headlight negative - start the bike and if you see 12-14 volts between the two ground points file a report with the NHTSA and call Yamaha to complain.

Thanks for the trouble shooting tip. I will post the cause when I get it fixed. I have found that all troubles are easy once they are fixed. I would like to say every one reply are helping me alot.

Here ya be. Headlight bulb removal

Thanks a bunch for link on bulb removal.

 

[oldmantwo]

If it isn;t a relay it COULD be a bad spider. One of the ones in the nacelle harness that Yamaha claims doesn't cause any problems HAS caused problems for several owners..

Plug the bike back together, put a voltmeter from battery negative to headlight negative - start the bike and if you see 12-14 volts between the two ground points file a report with the NHTSA and call Yamaha to complain.

Let me give all an update. Bulbs are good with using a jumper connected to 12V to test each filment on both bulbs. The big gatcha here is required a ground jumper. Was able to open the back of the left light rear wiring connector and jumper a ground and place 12V on the hi lead comming from (ref 2006 Wiring Diagram (2/2) Component #95 , Dimmer Relay). This caused both light to come on.

You are correct Sir, I guess this is a spider. There appears to be 28 Ohms resistance to frame ground. My bike is a 2007 and I have had the harness recall done. Called a good dealer and they said had not heard of any problems, they will call Yamaha tech support this comming Tuesday. I never did get around to finding and testing the light on/off relay. One strange think is I could not get the low beam to come on with the ground jumper connected and placing 12V on the low wiring comming of the Dimmer Relay harness, could have been cockpit trouble on my part, that bothers me a bit.

I will try and see if the light and fan harness are still being produced by a forum member. If any one knows please post. I am not sure I will ever get all the plastic back together.

Thanks for all of those who posted.

 

[road runner]

I don't have any harnesses made now, and it will be a while before I do.

I'm not convinced it's a spider problem. There is 1 spider for each lite. Sider #7 left lite, spider #8 right lite. If there was a problem with #7 it could take out #8, but you would have a lot of other stuff on your dash not working correct. You didn't say there was anything else not working, did you ? I didn't read all posts.

Like others said keep it simple. Unhook the lite socket and do some checking, and make sure you have a good connect with the gage or test lite. For the head lite circuit you can use a simple test lite to check the socket for 12 volt pos. and neg. You can check the neg side with the bike off. Just probe the test lite into the neg connection in the sockets and hook the other end to the battery pos. If it lites the spiders are good.

Let me know if you need the harnesses for sure and I'll see what I can do.

 

[bramfrank]

One spider takes out one light. The other takes out both. It could still be the relay.

 

[bramfrank]

Here's a link to another thread for someone with a bike that exhibited the same problem: https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php?showtopic=141108&st=20

For that rider, the problem WAS the relay.

 

[bramfrank]

Note: the main items connected to S7 and S8 are the headlights and turn signal indicators - I believe the windshield motor is also grounded through S8.

I still vote relay.

 

[road runner]

Here is a post ionbeam wrote for accuating the headlite relay.

link

 

[bramfrank]

@road runner - that's the same thread I posted above.

 

[Constant Mesh]

The "high beam" indicating LED light gets its power via the main headlight relay. The turn signal indicating lights share the same ground circuit. If they are working the high beam indicator should be working assuming the head light relay is closing in OK.

 

[oldmantwo]

I don't have any harnesses made now, and it will be a while before I do.

I'm not convinced it's a spider problem. There is 1 spider for each lite. Sider #7 left lite, spider #8 right lite. If there was a problem with #7 it could take out #8, but you would have a lot of other stuff on your dash not working correct. You didn't say there was anything else not working, did you ? I didn't read all posts.

Like others said keep it simple. Unhook the lite socket and do some checking, and make sure you have a good connect with the gage or test lite. For the head lite circuit you can use a simple test lite to check the socket for 12 volt pos. and neg. You can check the neg side with the bike off. Just probe the test lite into the neg connection in the sockets and hook the other end to the battery pos. If it lites the spiders are good.

Let me know if you need the harnesses for sure and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the reply. For sure I need to locate and inspect, clean the S connections. A couple of rides ago the shield failed to operate, then started working. The last time I rode when a fellow rider noticed my head light were out, I had windshield down. Now noticed with key on the windshield will not operate, that might be correct, will have to look at drawing before I go down that path. I will still need to test the on/off relay now I know for sure where it is.

If you don't have cables made or the necessary H4 head light connectors on hand, I can make some. Could you post the components (other than wire)?

Today the first MotoGP is on Speed channel, so this ground stuff will wait another day.

 

[oldmantwo]

One spider takes out one light. The other takes out both. It could still be the relay.

Thanks for each post. Its like having a better tester loooking over your shoulder seeing the problem a little different. I have a little more work to do including the windshield operation. That might be an exception to every thing else is working in my first post. I will have to pull it all the way apart to test that on/off relay.

 

[dcarver]

If it is the relay aftermarket is cheaper than oem see thread listed above for dcarver

 

[oldmantwo]

The "high beam" indicating LED light gets its power via the main headlight relay. The turn signal indicating lights share the same ground circuit. If they are working the high beam indicator should be working assuming the head light relay is closing in OK.

Re-checking the drawing says you are correct. When my lack of light condition (per fellow rider) was questioned, I fliped back and forth and noticed no light indicator. That was out on the road in daylight so after the ride I really didn't check every detail of the bike and make notes. My memory seem to be fairly fussy these days. I see from the drawing that power should be routed thru the "make contacts" of the on/off relay to the dimmer relay "high beam on" and to the light indicator under normal conditions. Is that correct? I do notice that if I now turn on the key I get neutral and high bean light (that may be correct will have chase that later if required. I think I have multiple problems (maybe on/off relay and for sure ground problem). I am unable to get my cheap camera to focus very well, however I will post a picture of what one problem is, no surprise.

 

[oldmantwo]

 

[bramfrank]

So, I called it - bad spider.

Get the issue properly reported to the NHTSA (www.safercars.gov.). Be clear about which spider it was and also contact Yamaha. You'll see lots of detail in my original thread here: https://www.fjrforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=137181

It isn't likely to be your relay on top of the ground spider. I'd stop looking now that you've proved the point.

The real problem is that if this happened to you late at night on a dark country road you might not be here today to troubleshoot your bike.

When Yamaha wimped out with their fix I was fairly vocal about it, but they managed to convince the NHTSA that there'd been no documented cases of problems with the nacelle harness - you are probably number four on the board to have come forward with this specific problem.

I also had Harald report HIS issues on the board here: https://www.fjrforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=139511. If you search the NHTSA web site for incident 10413801 you can see how he reported the problem . . . I would be very careful to stipulate that while the issue is the same, the involved components were NOT dealt with by the previous recall for what we call the 'spider bite'.

I created a number of enemies by my vocal and persistent pressure to get the original (S4) issues properly dealt with recalled, but in the end it all worked out and Yamaha may have been mad at me for having pressured them into recalling almost 10,000 bikes in North America (plus a whole bunch more everywhere else) - but that's just too darned bad. They ought to have stepped up a lot more quickly than they did.

Interesting enough, even though I was the main instigator, MY bike hasn't been done yet!! Then again I have bypassed a couple of spiders by soldering 18 gauge stranded wire to a few of the key spiders that I've run back to the battery negative, so the pressure is off. as far as my bike is concerned. You could do the same by soldering a wire to run between the spider caps on S6, S7 and S8 and tying it to battery negative. Just use one wire from a chopped up extension cord. It's quick. It's cheap and it works.

Isn't this more fun than searching for Easter eggs in your yard?

Congrats

 

[bramfrank]

Whoops - that should be https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/index.xhtml. However since I can't edit my posts, you'll have to live with the bottom-posted correction.

 

[oldmantwo]

So, I called it - bad spider.

Get the issue properly reported to the NHTSA (www.safercars.gov.). Be clear about which spider it was and also contact Yamaha. You'll see lots of detail in my original thread here: https://www.fjrforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=137181

It isn't likely to be your relay on top of the ground spider. I'd stop looking now that you've proved the point.

The real problem is that if this happened to you late at night on a dark country road you might not be here today to troubleshoot your bike.

When Yamaha wimped out with their fix I was fairly vocal about it, but they managed to convince the NHTSA that there'd been no documented cases of problems with the nacelle harness - you are probably number four on the board to have come forward with this specific problem.

I also had Harald report HIS issues on the board here: https://www.fjrforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=139511. If you search the NHTSA web site for incident 10413801 you can see how he reported the problem . . . I would be very careful to stipulate that while the issue is the same, the involved components were NOT dealt with by the previous recall for what we call the 'spider bite'.

I created a number of enemies by my vocal and persistent pressure to get the original (S4) issues properly dealt with recalled, but in the end it all worked out and Yamaha may have been mad at me for having pressured them into recalling almost 10,000 bikes in North America (plus a whole bunch more everywhere else) - but that's just too darned bad. They ought to have stepped up a lot more quickly than they did.

Interesting enough, even though I was the main instigator, MY bike hasn't been done yet!! Then again I have bypassed a couple of spiders by soldering 18 gauge stranded wire to a few of the key spiders that I've run back to the battery negative, so the pressure is off. as far as my bike is concerned. You could do the same by soldering a wire to run between the spider caps on S6, S7 and S8 and tying it to battery negative. Just use one wire from a chopped up extension cord. It's quick. It's cheap and it works.

Isn't this more fun than searching for Easter eggs in your yard?

Congrats

I will be calling Destination Cycle in Kerville, Tx this Tuesday and let them know that the recall did not help my bike. The Service Manager will call Yamaha Support. I will let them know that this issue will be reported to NHTSA as what ever fix their cable did was not sufficient.

To be honest I am not even sure what the S number in my video is. Here are a few questions. Are each of the S #ed shown on the thread with the spreadsheet like the one in my video? I did a quick search of the locations listed in the spreadsheet and did not see any more of the six connector with the black cap. Am I just missing them? For sure I will be add some ground connection. I will let my bike set a day or two to see what Yamaha has to say. I think I remember the Service Manager saying the wiring was suppose to be checked as part of the recall harness installation. I guess thats a very limited visual inspection as I know no skin was removed in the 1.5 hour job. Help with the S connectors (location or pictures) would be appreciated.

 

[road runner]

PM sent.

 

[oldmantwo]

Wanted to give an update on my loss of lights. First I want to thank RZ350 for his work with the S #ed ground buss spreadsheet. Without finding the thread that you guys posted, I would not have been able to understand the ground wiring. I am currently waiting for some of "Road Runner's cables and will start to buttom up. I have restored a good ground by cleaning the S6 spider pin that feeds S7&S8. I showed that in my video. While trading PM with Road Runner, I address concerns about S5 having the recall wiring harness. He informed me that it should have gone to S4. I was suspious of the connections in part due to the knowledge avabible in "RZ350's" spreadsheet. Called the dealer and ask about the recall connection and he read the instructions saying LH side connector. I said they connected to RH side and sent pictures. I don't think that cause any trouble and wired it correctly. I like other feel that Yamaha did not go far enought with the recall (new ground harness to S4). My problem was down chain of that. I will be following up with the NHTSA with this issue. Just for info I discussed with the Service Manager my plans to add grounding harness on the lights and fans. He discussed this with Yamaha Tech Support and they said go ahead and do that.

 

[oldmantwo]

I wanted to close out my post and let everyone know that I fired up the bike this morning and both high & low beams come on after the bike is running. The shield up down seems to work better also. Just to let all know I really liked Road Runners cable. I put both light and fan cables on. When I cleaned the S6 I took one more step and soldered a 1 1/4 inch 14Ga junper from pin 1 to 4 and coated with liquid tape (wiring side). That should always provide a good ground path to and from the S6 spider.

Just flushed raditor and will be getting the bike ready for a June ride to Sturgis, SD and over to the Beartooth Hwy (MT/Wy), back to S Texas via Yellow Stone Park and Colorado, and New Mexico.

Thanks again for the help.

oldmantwo