lagasse@biomed.UUCP (Robert C. Lagasse) (06/18/85)
Coni Johnson @ Univ. of Wisconson wrote about turn signals that operate only when the engine is revved up high. Reply: Coni, it is obvious that your alternator is producing enough power to charge a battery , operate the turn signals, blow the horn , etc. The problem is probably one of these: 1. The battery is not capable of holding a charge. In other words, if you were able to disconnect the battery from the bike and run everything off of the alternator, the turn signals would act like you mention. DO NOT disconnect the battery from the bike while it is running as you may damage the bike's voltage regulator. 2. The battery has a bad ground. Although you can rule this out if the horn blows nice and loud and if the bike electric starts O.K. 3. The turn signal bulbs have bad grounds. This is a very common possibility. You can check for this by jumpering a #12 wire between the lamp bulb shells and battery minus (-) terminal. You must do this in bulb pairs to be effective. That is, you must jumper both Left turn signal bulbs to ground at the same time, turn on the ignition key , and operate the left turn signal switch. This trick may start the signals flashing. This is because of the following: Automotive turn signal flashers (and I suppose some motorcycle ones too) want to see a minimum load of TWO bulbs in the circuit , that is , a front bulb and a rear bulb. Remove one of the two bulbs, and the remaining lamps just sits there, on, and so does the dashboard turn indicator. This is apparently designed as a way to let a motorist know when a turn signal bulb is burned out. Now, there is another condition that will make the turn signal flasher think that there is only one bulb and that is poor connections which are usually in the form of poor lamp shell grounds due to corrosion of the lamp bulb shell and/or socket. NOTE:Replacement flashers sold as "heavy duty" for use with 4-way flashers do not exhibit this characteristic with a single lamp and flash anyway. 4. The flasher may be bad. Try a new one or even a "heavy duty" one as it will not be as picky about a bad ground. Good Luck Bobby L @ MGH