Headlamp failure?

[Leprechaun]

Pulling into the garage this morning, I noticed the headlights weren't working,I mean the low beams. I switched to high beam and they worked. OK,switch off engine, and try again. This time the high beams

didn't work. "Ah Ha", I said to myself, the bulbs are blown. Following Southern Roller's post in the thread of a similar name, I decided to change the bulbs.What a PITA!. To cut a long story short, I discovered that the bulbs are OK. On European models there is a switch on the left handlebar which lets you switch quickly to high-beam.I tried it,and the high-beam works on the new bulbs and the old ones. All the other lights are working(indicators,brake light,parking lights). To my limited understanding,this points to a relay problem.In the above-mentioned thread,dcarver found a replacement relay made by Panasonic.However,the thread is a few years old,and a Google search shows that it's obsolete.Can anyone point me to an equivalent?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fred W]

Dumb question: When you say that you "switched off the engine and tried again" and then both the highs and lows didn't work, do you mean that you restarted the bike's engine to perform that retest? Because the headlights don't come on with the key-switch until after you (at least attempt to) start the engine.

Details: There are two relays for the FJR headlights. The first relay toggles the headlight power on after the key is switched on and the ECU senses a starter button push. The second relay directs the power from Relay #1 to either the high beam filaments or the low beam filaments.

Your incremental symptoms don't quite make sense to me for either relay failure, which is why I asked the dumb question.

 

[Leprechaun]

Your "dumb question" made me think again: I went down to the garage and tried again. Insert key, turn on ignition,sidelights as normal,start engine,NO low beams,but high beams YES. Is this a relay problem,or am I missing something?

 

[Fred W]

OK, good. Yes, this almost certainly is a headlight relay #2 problem. The bulbs share the ground for high and low beams and the power up to Relay #2 is good as proved by the high beams still working and you've already ruled out the bulbs themselves. The relay is passing current through it to the high beams, and they extinguish when you try to go to lows, so that says all the relay trigger input is good, so must be the relay has a bad contact on the low beam side. The only other (somewhat remote) possibility would be the low beam wiring between the relay #2 and the headlights has broken (opened), which is the solid green colored wire.

Sorry I can't help with alternate relay sources. I'd imagine it could be ordered OEM relatively quickly.

 

[Leprechaun]

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

 

[bramfrank]

Do you have the bulb connectors plugged in upside down?

 

[Leprechaun]

After some more troubleshooting,the problem is not a relay failure,but a failure between the ears!

Both bulbs have the same fault, the low-beam doesn't work,the high-beam does. I changed the left one

but the right one has defeated me. I'll leave it to my trusty mechanic:let him have the pleasure of scratching his

hands trying to move brake lines out of the way!

Thanks for the replies, and please excuse my stupidity.

 

[RadioHowie]

Do you have the bulb connectors plugged in upside down?

A three-pin connector would be pretty hard to plug in upside down.

 

[bramfrank]

No. It isn't. And he won't have been the first - never done it myself, mind you.

 

[Fred W]

Do you have the bulb connectors plugged in upside down?

A three-pin connector would be pretty hard to plug in upside down.

Not so much upside down, but think rotated 180 degrees. The middle connector goes nowhere.