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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Damaged cable causing right turn signals failure.
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Message started by uigiroux on 03/20/14 at 00:05:37

Title: Damaged cable causing right turn signals failure.
Post by uigiroux on 03/20/14 at 00:05:37

After a long day of thinking my bike was dead due to battery issue and then reading on the forums how an over tightened screw can pinch the cable causing a grounding issue completely shutting down the bikes electrical system, and having done that exact thing, and after many blown fuses (very helpful if you get the ones that light up if that fuse blows) I realized how to get my bike going and I thought all was good... Wrong. I over tightened my front right screw that holds the light in place which caused this issue and as I said earlier, I fixed that and replaced the fuse and now my bike is running fine. HOWEVER, I noticed that my entire right side (front and back) are now not working, including on the indicator panel. I'm guessing I'm going to have to remove the whole light with cable and just cut and splice in new wires. Is this correct? Will this solve the whole issue or will I also have to do some other things to fix this? As far as I'm aware the only fuses are the two attached just beneath the seat on the frame. Is the any others for the front that I'm not aware of? PLEASE HELP!!

Also I'm thinking of doing a conversion of my turn signals to the LED strips that do the full run/brake/turn functions. Has anyone ride done this and if so, what are your thoughts. Even if I don't do that I'm so finished with the garbage stock turn signals. I've broken 3 and that's from minimal contact. They're cheap plastic garbage and certainly not worth the $70-$90 prices I see on OEM websites. I did just find an exact replica that K&S makes for about $45, but still I could get a set of four equally crappy, if not better lights off so many different sites. Today I found some spacers at the local hardware store that fit in the rear mounting hole exactly and I was able to thread them to fit any light that bolts to size M8. Even if I go with the LED option I could use this and fit an acorn nut large enough to cover the hole making the entire chrome side bracket just be bare and have a nice sleek looking fender which I think is the best option. My only problem then would be what/how to cover the hole that would be left on the top rear of the fender from removing the brake light. 'Black Beauty' did a amazing job with this and in many ways my bike will soon look very similar to that as I'm clearing everything in the middle of the chassis out, though I'm not sure if I'm going to make a piece of sheet metal to follow the frame from the battery mount up to the seat, though I'm considering it. Getting off point. I believe he actually welded in a piece of metal to fill the gap then sanded it down and then had it repainted. More money than I can afford to just fill that little gap so looking for ideas. I know they have that metal compound at like Autozone you can get that fills in gaps, but once again I'd have to sand it down and then fix the paint that got sanded in the process...

So back to main point, I need help in fixing my lighting issue and I'm looking at the Flexible Array LED light strips on chromeglow.com to possibly replace all my turn signals and brake lights. Probably should have made more than one thread on this as I'm covering multiple issues and main concern is fixing my lighting! Lol please help if you can.

http://www.chromeglow.com/

Title: Re: Damaged cable causing right turn signals failu
Post by Dave on 03/20/14 at 09:22:29

You need to go to the Technical Section and print out the wiring diagram for you bike. Here is a link:

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1294779818

Then circle all of the things that no longer work, and start tracing those wires on the diagram to see what they have in common that would cause them to fail. This could either be on the power side - or the ground side. When you find a wire, relay or switch that they have in common - that will give you an idea of where to start looking.

Also to determine if the problem is on the power or ground side - You could take a volt meter or 12v test light and ground the negative side of the to the battery and test to see if power is being delivered to the lights that don't work.

My opinion on LED's....is that most of them are not safe when riding in daylight or direct sunshine. I have also ridden behind some sport bikes at night that had completely unsafe LED tail and stop light combinations that were just barely visible. That website link you provided makes all the lights look really bright in their advertisements - but the shots I saw appear to be taken at dusk. I have ridden behind motorcycles in daylight with LED lights and turn signals, and they are not DOT approved for a reason.....they are hard to see in daylight. I had the same problem with the LED tail light and turns signals on my Cafe' conversion....and I added a brake light that uses an emergency LED strobe that can be set to burn steady whenever power is provided. For the turns signals I had to put some 1.5 Watt LED bulbs in as those tiny 13 LED's just don't get the job done in daylight. The stock turn signals and tail light may not be durable enough to take impact.....but at least they can be seen in daylight. It is OK to put something on that is more durable and looks better - but it has to be bright enough to alert distracted drivers that you are stopping or turning......You need to be safe as well as good looking! ;D

Title: Re: Damaged cable causing right turn signals failu
Post by uigiroux on 03/21/14 at 01:17:10

Well after many hours of going through the cables I finally found this issue and it was exactly what I thought it would be but fixing it took longer than predicted. Front right turn signal wire was pinched and I basically cut everything and rewired. It took so long because I don't yet have a soldering tool but will remedy that tomorrow. Luckily I had some electrical tape and a heat gun and that worked in the end. Didn't realize the difference in difficulty between fixing the rear lights compared to the front, so hopefully won't have to do anything up there until I get a new set of lights to replace them all. Out of curiosity, why does the front have a ground wire but the rear doesn't?

Title: Re: Damaged cable causing right turn signals failu
Post by Steve H on 03/21/14 at 01:52:09

You don't want to carry power through the stem bearings. It can cause premature bearing failure. Also, since the bearings move, it wouldn't be a good, solid ground.

Least that's what I've always been told on the subject. YMMV.

Title: Re: Damaged cable causing right turn signals failu
Post by Dave on 03/21/14 at 03:14:09

667A747A617C666B130 wrote:

Out of curiosity, why does the front have a ground wire but the rear doesn't?

The front and rear both have ground wires.

The rear light only has two wires....one ground and one positive.....as the bulb has a single filament and only functions as a turn signal.

The front light has 3 wires.....one ground, one running light and one turn signal....the bulb has two filaments. This light functions as a running light whenever the key is on, and a turn signal.