Turn signal Question

[Manfred]

What would make both front and rear turn signals on one side only stop working? Both bulbs have in-tact filaments. I have not yet tried them on the other side. Any ideas?

Stumped in the swamp known as Houston.

[ME 109]

I'd start with the handle bar switch.

[Manfred]

Seems the switch is OK, as the left side works fine. Or am I being dense?

[jagarra]

When my turn signals stopped working and both bulbs on the same side stayed on when selected it turned out to be the flasher unit. I opened it up, resoldered all the points on the PCB inside and it started working correctly again.

[Duane Ausherman]

Seems the switch is OK, as the left side works fine. Or am I being dense?

Yes, your switch has two contacts, one for each side. The contact for one side could be corroded, or the wire disconnected. It is a simple test to diagnose this, just by-pass the switch contacts.

[Manfred]

OK - thanks. Also, the turn signal idiot light stays lit.

[Manfred]

Update - The switch is working. With both right side bulbs pulled, the idiot light stays off and the switch commands the right turn signals to flash. With a bulb in either front or back on the right side, the idiot light comes on and neither filament in either bulb lights. The bulbs work when put in the left side.

I failed to mention, I have converted the turn signals to dual filament bulbs running as parking lights all the time. The right and left front running lights use the same power source as do the right and left rear running lights. Not sure if they have a common ground that might have failed and be causing this problem.

[Manfred]

Here's the end of it: While each end of the bike shares a common ground for all the lights on each end, that common terminates separately at each light. Simple - right? When I installed the dual element sockets, I had to attach the ground to the new socket differently than stock. On both right side sockets, the ground connection had failed. Looks like simple fatigue leading to invisible opens in each ground connection. Found it while playing around with the front socket, trying to think.

[ME 109]

'Let there be light', yer might say.

[Manfred]

'Let there be light', yer might say.

I might say that, but I would simply be quoting One greater than I who said it first