| Author | Message | ||
     Midknyte |
Still chasing a gremlin... I melted up my subharness plug with my HID this summer. That's replaced and I isolated things with a relay'ed aux harness. Everything back up to snuff as it were. Fast forward to today's commute. Stopped across the street to grab some caffeine & snack before heading in to work. Parked the bike for about 5 min. Return to start it and head across the street whereupon I am cut off by a left turner (no biggy - I NEVER assume that anyone is going to do what they should, ought, or indicate they will). Parked and still idling I find that I have no headlight. grrr. Parking lot diagnostics: Fuses ok. Lighting SubHarness plug ok (the male end anyway). HID refuses to light. Unplug & plug into my high-beam line & guess what? Yup, full on HID glory. SO, ballast, light, and aux harness fine. Return to the scene at lunch and try switching back and powering off the low beam line again for giggles, and hey, it works again? Grrrrahhhh! What other weak points in the system should I check? | ||
| Damnut |
Mine does that once and a while. Turn the key, no light. Flick it back off then on again, hey look LIGHTS. I don't think it's a problem, at least I'm not too worried about it with mine. | ||
| Sleez |
my guess would be the connection was questionable, either some corrosion or not seated fully, once you re-seated it, it was good. hard to make many other conclusions. either that or the ballast didn't fire for some reason??? | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Relay or ground bad? Bad connection? Start where you last changed things. I installed a new aux. relay for some new horns I installed on my Firebolt. First try the new relay shorted out my horn fuse. After testing I found the new relay was shorted out. | ||
| Slick17 |
Yeah. Really sounds like a bad relay. This didn't happen on my bike but on my car and it was a bad relay. | ||
| Midknyte |
That's the one thing I did not think to check out this time. Will watch for repeat and swap my relay out - I keep a spare in the open slot. | ||
| Iamarchangel |
I just repaired the connector on my 9R. Headlight connector is supposed to be attached up between the headlights, you probably already know that. Mine was dangling courtesy of previous owner. Problem was ground wire on headlight side of connector. It was rotted green. In some positions everything worked, in others, all heck broke loose. Cut the ground on both sides of the connector and made a new connection. All fine now. Hope this helps. | ||
| Brumbear |
unless its dark I probably wouldn't notice | ||
| Jos51700 |
I'm going to have to say that I think your ballast for your HID's is going tits-up. | ||
| Xb1200rick |
My vote is for the relay .Ballast usually go after they get hot and open up . Or just a bad connection Rick | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
+1 on the relay Also it could possible be corrosion with your headlight switch. It the ignitors still fire the xenon bulb then your HID set up is most likely fine. | ||
| Midknyte |
I dunno... I swapped the relays around to try to get it to work and it made no difference. A couple of times in the garage last night the light flashed on but did not stay lit (go thru ignition cycle). When it finally did, I left it run for 45 min to allow the ballast come up to full running temp. Shutting it off at that point, it would not re-light. Need to hit it with the multi-meter tonight and check to make sure power is consistently making it thru the sub-harness. | ||
| Jos51700 |
I say the ballast because ballast don't affect the running of the light one bit. ALL they do is allow STARTUP. Hmmmmmmmmm, so you started it cold, and they worked fair, but everything got good n' warm, and now they don't re-light? I know where I'd start. Besides, what's the most expensive componant in the system? | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Just check and see that you have power to the ballast when the light doesn't work. That would rule out everything before that point. | ||
| Midknyte |
Can't make it act up tonight to check... Is it possible for the relay(s) to be bad in such a way that it only effects the headlight? It starts and runs fine every time. | ||
| Iamarchangel |
HID is only on the high beam circuit, right? Both lights go off? So problem is both hi and low? Common point is ground. See earlier post. | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Is it possible for the relay(s) to be bad in such a way that it only effects the headlight? It starts and runs fine every time. It would depend on how it was wired. If that relay only powers the light circuit it could. Check the wire coming from the relay, if it has power when relay is switched on, the relay should be good. | ||
| Midknyte |
HID is only on the high beam circuit, right? Nope. Low. If I power it off the high line, it lights every time though. Does anyone know if the high beam line goes thru a relay? | ||
| Iamarchangel |
Okay, sorry. Works on high, not always on low. So, system works up to connection to lights. Still looking at ground. Stock, ground goes from connector through a rubber hose thing. In the hose, there is a 1 to 2 connection. Check ground from that connection to low headlight ground. | ||
| Midknyte |
Stock, ground goes from connector through a rubber hose thing You talkin 'bout the the sub harness that plugs into the main harness that splits out the lines for the high/low/aux? That thar's a thought I did not thunk! | ||
| Iamarchangel |
The one I just had to repair on my 9R is the headlight side of the 4-wire connector. Once I found it, I could recreate the problem by moving the wire. The manual calls it the 38 connector. It should be clipped to a tree and fitted in between the two headlight housings. Like I said, mine was hanging loose. | ||
| Midknyte |
Answer to my question - I took out all of my relays and the high beam still lights. So, nope, the high beam line is straight thru, non-relayed. Relays are cheap. That's my next swing at this... | ||
| Ratbuell |
If all you're doing is firing a ballast trigger with your low beam wire, you should be able to run a non-relayed, key-switched power wire to feed the HID trigger. A trigger wire doesn't pull much juice at all - remove a component, save a step. | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Midknyte, Have you checked the power from the new relay you installed to power the low beam? When the HID low beam doesn't light, does it have power from the wire it connects to? | ||
| Midknyte |
Rat' Yes, I am just firing a ballast trigger (remote relay on aux harness), now... But I ran most of the year straight to the ballast plug & play, so I may have damaged a relay(s) with the ballast startup load. One was really warm when I took it out even though I had the bike switched on (and not even running) for just a moment. Xbr' I did not get that far. I left the keyswitch on and everything in place, unplugged the low line and plugged back in and my light fired. So there was power. I wiggled and prodded at my wires. All my connectors are new - I did the splicing and changed the connectors to match and I solder all connections when possible, even crimped connects. I think I have a relay that is not cutting in/on clean and the ballast sometimes does not get a chance to start properly. At any rate, relays _are_ cheap and easy to swap out. Firing it off the high beam line (which I learned last night is not relayed) fires it consistently - ground should not be the issue, I have not changed it in my fiddling, only the hot lines. | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Midknyte, you could have a bad headlight switch on the low beam side. It may have gotten too hot when your harness did the meltdown. That could be causing the low beam not to work consistently. Check it with an OHM meter to see if it has a high resistance. It should have the same reading through both Hi/Low positions. (Message edited by xbrfirebolt on October 16, 2008) (Message edited by xbrfirebolt on October 16, 2008) | ||
| Midknyte |
a bad headlight switch on the low beam side Do you mean the engine on/off kill switch? | ||
| Midknyte |
It should have the same reading through both Hi/Low positions. That would be the switch on the left handlebar. I've already taken that apart to inspect it and it looks mighty fine. | ||
| Xbrfirebolt |
Try swapping the relay like you said then. If that doesn't work, you need to get out the meter and check each part of the circuit to see where the problem is for sure. | ||
| Damnut |
Once again, mine has done this from day one. Every once in a while it will not fire. Have fun chasing ghosts. |
