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Electrical gurus -- help!

3K views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  drumstyx 
#1 ·
My headlight decided to quit sometime between wednesday and last night, and of course I was nowhere near home. No biggie, CAA came and got me, but now it's time to fix it.

I'm trying to follow the wiring diagram, and I'm pretty sure I'm reading it correctly (also common sense...) when it says the red wire at the left bar switch cluster is positive.

Well, there's 0 resistance to negative, and something like -340ohms resistance to positive on that wire with ignition on. I can't make any sense of this.

What's driving me mad is that, if positive is shorted straight to ground, shouldn't *everything* stop working? Wouldn't wires be blowing up?

What the heck is going on?!
 
#2 ·
Suggestion: Take another look at the wiring diagram:

http://circuitswiring.com/circuit-diagrams/2/2011/04/wiring-diagram-of-kawasaki-klr650.jpg

I don't find the RED wire of which you speak. Switched + 12 VDC is found on the BROWN wire.

And . . . is your headlight fuse o.k.? A controversial subject, but . . . some say, on a Generation 1, the hi/lo beam switch can momentarily ignite BOTH filaments, overloading the OEM 10-amp headlight fuse; solution: Substitute a 15-amp fuse.
 
#3 ·
It's incredibly dumb, but it turned out to be the bulb. I assumed it wasn't because they both went out at the same time seemingly.

That said, there's still the oddity of what seems like ground on the positive wire. On that diagram, it's the solid red wire directly above the red/white wire in the left bar cluster.
 
#5 ·
Yeah, that makes sense, but doesn't explain why I was getting 0 resistance to ground from it, unless maybe I was measuring with ignition off and off = grounded for that wire. I don't recall if I had ignition on or not.

I couldn't find any chafing on the harness anywhere, so presumably it's all working correctly -- clearly the headlight isn't a problem anymore, and I'm just a dummy! :p
 
#8 ·
If you unplug the headlight, put one voltmeter probe in the ground slot, the other probe in the high-beam and then the low-beam slot, with the ignition switch on, while manipulating the high/low beam headlight switch, you should be able to tell whether your problem is with your headlight bulb or not.
 
#9 ·
Come to think of it, yeah, that was the first thing I did, I forgot about that. I was getting 0 volts on both high and low, regardless of the switch. Maybe I didn't have the probe in far enough... Perhaps a few too many beers while troubleshooting.
 
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