Brake Light issue -

[TheRepoGuy]

Got the old girl out again today; put on about 85 miles and had absolutely no issues with how she is running LESS an issue with the brake lights. One of the local county cops told me my lights were stuck on (hand signals for a reason [emoji849]) and I went to step on the rear brake at some point which has been replaced with yet another NOS part and it let out the magic smoke...

Now - my canceling unit has been toast for a hot minute, ordered a couple more but they haven’t shown up yet. I’ve been reading over the schematic on the wiring for it and nothing I’ve got looks too out of place less I don’t have the trunk hooked up though when the trunk was on the bike the lights worked fine.

Without playing the redundant card; is there anywhere in the brake light wiring system that’s more prone to failure/Short than somewhere else? The only thing which makes any sense is with the trunk on it was fine and with it off they don’t work.


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[saganaga]

Did the trunk have separate lights on it? If so, what did you do with the connector to those lights? Could that connector be contacting a metal part of the bike and shorting the system out?

 

[TheRepoGuy]

Did the trunk have separate lights on it? If so, what did you do with the connector to those lights? Could that connector be contacting a metal part of the bike and shorting the system out?

The trunk has its own plug in for the lights which was cut to **** so I stripped all the wires back and hit them with the 3M waterproof connectors. They’re not touching metal anywhere oddly enough, that was the first place I checked


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[saganaga]

When you put waterproof connectors on them, I assumed you capped each wire separately. If you connected them together, they'd create a direct short to ground.

 

[TheRepoGuy]

When you put waterproof connectors on them, I assumed you capped each wire separately. If you connected them together, they'd create a direct short to ground.

They’re capped individually - none of them are connected to other wires at the moment


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[saganaga]

I'm checking out a picture of the wiring diagram, and it looks like the wire that powers the taillights is green with a yellow stripe.

If you have a digital multimeter, test the resistance at the at that connection. Turn the bike off. Set the multimeter to ohms. Test the bike side of the connector, not the brake switch side. With one probe touching a good ground, touch the other probe to the green/yellow wire. If it reads zero ohms or close to it, there's a short.

To narrow down the problem, there's another electrical connection near the taillight. On the GL1100 standard, it's under the seat. I'd guess it's around the same location on the GL1200. Check the side of the connector towards the rear of the bike - one again, the green/yellow wire. If it's zero ohms, the problem exists backwards of the bike. Else, the problem exists forward of that connector.

 

[TheRepoGuy]

I'm checking out a picture of the wiring diagram, and it looks like the wire that powers the taillights is green with a yellow stripe.

If you have a digital multimeter, test the resistance at the at that connection. Turn the bike off. Set the multimeter to ohms. Test the bike side of the connector, not the brake switch side. With one probe touching a good ground, touch the other probe to the green/yellow wire. If it reads zero ohms or close to it, there's a short.

To narrow down the problem, there's another electrical connection near the taillight. On the GL1100 standard, it's under the seat. I'd guess it's around the same location on the GL1200. Check the side of the connector towards the rear of the bike - one again, the green/yellow wire. If it's zero ohms, the problem exists backwards of the bike. Else, the problem exists forward of that connector.

I’ve gone through the entire brake system; replacing the relay tomorrow to see if that helps any, if it doesn’t then I’ll be rewiring the entire system and setting it correctly. I’ve gone through it with an Ohm meter too twice with the same result lol


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[Two85s]

I had a brake light on issue with my 1100 turned out that front brake lever and worn where the switch hits it. A thin shim and all is well