Beautiful 850 but no head or tail lights

[jslone44]

Hellol. I have an 81 GS 850 that has been just awesome. The starter went out on me recently. I changed it out with no problems but now when i fire it up I have no head or tail lights and no instrument lights. Signals and brake light works fine. Fuses look good. Doesn't seem to be any loose or disconnected wires that I can see. Has anyone had this problem and if so how did I you fix it? I'd appreciate any advise I can get. Thanks.

[Big T]

Replace your fuses and check the back of your fuse box for melted wire connections

[cowboyup3371]

Fuses can "look good" and still blow up on you under that metal cap. Check each one with a power light or even your multimeter (you do have one right?) and ensure you have power throughout.

[DanTheMan]

Welcome to best forum in the bike world! We think so anyway. Here's a page of nearly everything you need to know, compiled by our resident unofficial greeter, BassCliff, who is unable to do the job at the moment: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/ He will return however,. There's more than most people can digest in one day here.

[jslone44]

Thanks so much to the both of you!! It turned out to be a fuse that looked good but was actually no good at all. Everything works great now.

[850 Combat]

Replace all of them. They sometimes fail from age and vibration, or maybe they were looked at too hard. I don't know why, but my experience is that after one fuse has failed for no apparent reason, more fuses are bound to fail in the next few thousand miles.

Put new ones in all the slots.