Wacky Winjammer lighting problem

[dpep]

Electrics have always been my bane. I'm in on Ohm's Law but my practice rarely produces the results my theory told me it would.

I had someone else put the Winjammer on an 850 during the period I was recovering from Irma. It was off in a shop when the storm hit so it was the only bike spared. There were other issues to resolve and I have just now gotten around to putting it on the road.

The problem is that when I put on a turn signal (L or R) the headlight and both of the running/signal lights in the fairing blink together as though in hazard light light mode. I would blame it on mis-wiring except that the rear turn signals function exactly as they are supposed to on both sides. And except for the turn signals the lighting in the Winjammer work correctly--headlight on high and low beam and both running lights.

Before I begin my pitiful and certain to be frustrating trial and error quest I wanted to check with our vast GSR brain trust to see if anyone else has encountered something similar. It has the Winjammer harness and socket which I transferred from another 850. And I am using a new Novita 552 flasher; as I said the rear signals are working fine.
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[Steve]

It has been my experience that if you have some really strange things happening, look for a bad ground. :encouragement:

You can always bring it by my shop and we'll sort it out for you. :-\\\

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[Redman]

When you say headlight and running lights blink, do you mean dim and back to brute, or do you mean flash off and on....?

yah, I will say about what Steve said: when some light works most the time but then works different when other light is on, then suspect a ground problem. If the wrong light comes on when some other light should, well, then the wires for those lights are probably miss connected.

the windjammer fairing I had (windjammer II or maybe III) had a wire harness for the headlight that was just an extension (3 conductor: hi, lo, gnd) of the headlight connector, and then had another harness for everything else, let’s see, that would be RT turn, Lft turn, running, aux?, and ground for those. I will suspect that ground is not well grounded.

Hey, your jammer an older one, like a II or III ???
i have a scan copy of the manaul from when I had one. It came with a certain maroon 80 850G that I had (a-hem). Glad to share that with you if you want.

 

[dpep]

When you say headlight and running lights blink, do you mean dim and back to brute, or do you mean flash off and on....?

yah, I will say about what Steve said: when some light works most the time but then works different when other light is on, then suspect a ground problem. If the wrong light comes on when some other light should, well, then the wires for those lights are probably miss connected.

the windjammer fairing I had (windjammer II or maybe III) had a wire harness for the headlight that was just an extension (3 conductor: hi, lo, gnd) of the headlight connector, and then had another harness for everything else, let’s see, that would be RT turn, Lft turn, running, aux?, and ground for those. I will suspect that ground is not well grounded.

Hey, your jammer an older one, like a II or III ???
i have a scan copy of the manaul from when I had one. It came with a certain maroon 80 850G that I had (a-hem). Glad to share that with you if you want.

The same maroon 850 I have the Winjammer on now. Small world. It is a Winjammer IV. Vetter's website has the wiring connections for that fairing to the GSs including the '80 850. I just have to hope the po didn't screw up the stock wiring too much. :lol:

Bad ground was the first thing that popped into my head also. It just seemed to me if that were the case other things would not work right as well. Nothing to do but start tracing.
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[Redman]

So, if it is like the jammer I had (which came along with the bike but was never ON the bike while I had it) the headlight harness has its own ground wire and the other harness for everything else has its ground wire for everything else. You can verify if that appli s to the one you have by looking at the schematic you found for yours.
If not a good connection on one of those ground wires, then the current might be going thru fairing frame(?) or other ground wire, either of which may not be an adaquate ground (eh, some resistance) for that amount of current (eh, current times resistance is voltage drop). And then when have yet an additional light on (eh, more current, eh, more voltage drop) it is making other things dim (hey, hey, you did use ohms law).

You say you found that schamatic, seeming in effort to troubleshoot this, so what did the guy that installed the fairing have to go by, I wonder. Must be he did pretty well because each item does work when it is suppose to.

 

[Gorminrider]

someone got the Run and Turn + wires mixed up...and to how they connect to your Suzuki. from the Windjammer"IV" for a Suzuki pdf:

so first track these coloured wires through to their correct connections to the coloured Suzuki wires...if the colours don't agree with these in the chart below on your windjammer, it's not that hard to find out what's what by connecting Ground and a "good guess" of RUN and TURN wires to a 12 volt supply. Naturally, RUN will be connected to both stalks...and it looks like this single wire has been somehow tapped to connect to each Suzuki turn light wire...it's so easy to miswire these: note that Windjammer and Suzuki both use Green and Black but for entirely different purposes.

 

[Redman]

Don,
Turns out the manual scan I have IS for the Windjammer IV. (that is about all the better my memory is these days)
Is the entire owners/installation manual.
Maybe is what you already have.
But I could email it to you (but I lost most of my email contacts about a year ago)

 

[dpep]

Don,
Turns out the manual scan I have IS for the Windjammer IV. (that is about all the better my memory is these days)
Is the entire owners/installation manual.
Maybe is what you already have.
But I could email it to you (but I lost most of my email contacts about a year ago)

Thanks. I just PM'd you my email. It won't hurt to have it whatever I find.
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[dpep]

Well, you have to eliminate the easy things first.

Took fairing off and went thru the bike > fairing connections in headlight nacelle. Everything to spec for the colors; clean bayonet connectors w/ plastic shrouds; nothing loose. Wiring inside fairing checked out; ground from both side lights and headlight properly spliced into black ground wire going into harness.

Will next track down some grounds on the bike. May have to wait a couple of days. Have some stuff scheduled through the weekend.

I did notice that it is as the side lights blink bright that the headlight blinks off. I should also mention that I have a Trucklite in the fairing and originally thought that might have been the issue. But when I replaced it with a standard 55/60 Halogen sealed beam the problem was exactly the same. So it does not seem to be related to total current draw either way.
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[Redman]

Any update....?

 

[Steve]

Something tells me he might have something else on his mind at the moment. :-k :-\\\

(HINT: he lives on the south side of the water, just under where the "p" is pointing, right next to the "105". )
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[Redman]

Something tells me he might have something else on his mind at the moment. :-k :-\\\
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Opp
Yep
Jacksonville
Within site of water. (surrounded by water hurricane 2017).
This bike is the one that survived last time (Irma 2017) because it was in another location higher elevation.

Yah, I think is the mandatory evac area.

Um....
Maybe I was asking for "an update" on the evac.

 

[Steve]

Jacksonville
Within site of water.

I don't remember being able to actually see the water from the street in front of his house, but if you walk 375 feet from his front door, the last few feet will have you VERY wet.

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