Lights won't turn off By Jeff (Read 9,925 times)

[Jeff]

I don't have a remote starter or alarm. There is no separate headlight switch other than the high beams and passing switch controls on the handler bars. I will recap what I have done.

Everything disconnected from the front end of the wiring harness, that means headlights, instrument panel, ignition switch, CDI, rectifier, diode, left and right handle bar controls, signal flasher, horn, fan.

I pulled all the crappy electrical tape off of every wire bundle, inspected the full length of each wire from the spade type connector to the point where it enters the plastic tube to go to the back of the scooter. Inspected every spade connector, both halves of the connection. For every spliced wire I took the tape off and checked the crimped connections, they were all crimped good and tight, then re-taped them. No issues found with any wires or connections. Inspected the fuse box and the wires going into it. All looks good. There are 3 15a fuses and 1 10a fuse. The 10a fuse must control the lighting circuit because the lights go out when I pull that fuse.

There are some more harness connections on the right rear, where you guys with the 250b's have your cdi, rectifier, and diode. (The Vog has all three of those located up front) These connections all look good.

The only thing I have not inspected at this point is the tail light. I have to remove all that plastic surrounding the seat box to get to those connections. That is the only plastic still on the scooter. I wonder if there is a second diode back there...

I've also wondered if having an open connection could do this, so I've reconnected everything up front and even switched a couple of things that use the same type of connectors even though the number of spades used or color of the wires is different. Nothing helps.

[Jeff]

It was the plastic connector the diode plugs into. When the rectifier mount broke and the rectifier was hanging by the wires the heatsink had touched this connector and one of the two rectifier connectors, melting them just a bit. I had looked closely at both of these connectors already, more than once or twice in fact. The rectifier connector had a pretty good melt point in the side but the connectors inside were spaced wide apart with plenty of plastic between them. The diode connector had just a very minor melt on one side. However, the 2 spade connectors inside are at right angles to each other and very little plastic seperating them. I had looked very closely at this several times and just couldn't see how they could be touching.

Last night I shoved a small screwdriver in there and forced one contact away from the other. Hooked up a set of lights and the battery and the lights did not come on. I forced that connector back to where it had been but could not get the connection to short again. Putting a jumper wire to both contacts made the lights go on. I knew I had found the problem but couldn't replicate it. No matter how much I try to short the contacts, they won't. I might snip the wires and solder spade connectors on to them and reconnect the diode outside of the plastic connector. This thing just hangs off the wiring harness anyway, it doesn't have a heatsink and doesn't bolt to the frame like diodes on the other scooters.

Time to re-wrap the harness and plug everything back in. Then the tupperware party begins.

[Cruiser]

Congratulations on finding the problem, Jeff. Condition #2 in my original post. Sometimes you need a magnifying glass to see some of these problems.