turn signal question. Right switch and lights works, left lights stay on.

[Guest]

I recently took my engine apart and replaced all the rod and crankshaft bearings. Upon getting the bike back together I took it for a ride and noticed that the left turn signal lights are stuck on, but will not blink when I hit the left turn signal switch. The right lights blink just fine when I hit the right turn signal switch.

I tested the lights out by swapping the wires on the front and back signals so that a right switch should turn on the left signals and left switch should turn on the right signals. When I did so the left lights blink when I hit the right switcher, while the right lights stay on. This leaves me to believe that the lights are properly grounded and working, but there is something wrong with either the left switcher, or something along the wiring harness, or wiring connectors somewhere.

I am terrible at electrical work. I've got a wiring diagram, but I don't know where all the connections are on the actual motorcycle. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Will
1982 GS650GL

[Joe Garfield]

Check the turn signal relay. There is a writeup on BikeCliff's website, and he mentions a trouble-shooting guide in the Suzuki manual which you can also get from his site:
BikeCliff Site: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/
Article specific for relay: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...eplacement.pdf

[Grimly]

It's not the turn signal relay itself, as that's working fine for one side (it's a single feed up through the TSR to the switch), but the switch is a two-tiered design, which not only connects the turn signals on the side of your choice, but also connects a 12V feed to the main turn signal control unit (the auto-timer/canceller unit). Without the 12V feed, the turn signals stay on, as I found last week.
You likely disturbed the multi-way connector from the bar switch, where it nestles under the front of the frame, behind the headstock. Take it apart, clean it up, put it back together.



The Light Green / Black is the feed from the switch to the CU when either turn signal is intiated. It suggests either your switch is defective, or the simple connector trouble reared its head.

[cowboyup3371]

Have you confirmed all the grounds are still good?

[William Groebe]

cowboyup3371, I haven't confirmed all grounds are good. I can't say I even know how to do that. I just tried to put the wiring back together the way it was based off photos I took before. What I can say is that I can get all the turn signals to flash so I assume they are all grounded. But only the signals which are connected to the right turn signal wires (I swapped the wires just to make sure that the bulbs/signals worked). So all my lights seem to be properly grounded, but something somewhere else is the problem, or at least I assume so. I assume something is wrong between the switcher and the left turn signals. I can't make much out of the wiring diagram, because it doesn't have photos of what all the connections actually look like. I'm a visual person.

Grimly, I cleaned out the multi-way connector under the gas tank but that didn't change anything. I guess my next step is to open up the actual turn signal switch. I'll get to that tomorrow.

[tom203]

Does the indicator bulb in cluster flash? When right side is "on" , the indicator bulb gets positive power from right side and grounds out thru left side bulbs to illuminate. And vice versa.

[William Groebe]

I turned on the bike this morning and all turn signal lights are off unless I switch the right blinkers on. The left lights had just stayed on before. Weird.
The indicator bulb flashes fine when the right blinkers are on. Again, no dice with the left blinkers.

[tom203]

Pull the headlight fuse out and see what now happens to blinkers

[William Groebe]

tom203. I pulled the headlight fuse, but no change to the blinkers. I'm going to try to pull apart the turn signal switch tonight.

[William Groebe]

I just realized I can't find a section of the manual that describes how to take apart/fix the turn signal switcher. It looks like it's just held on by a couple of screws. Oh well. I'm going to try taking it apart anyways and see if there isn't anything obvious.

[William Groebe]

I took apart the switcher, which I don't recommend to anyone. Lots of pieces, plus a ball bearing and a few springs which instantly shot around my garage and I spent the next ten minutes trying to find.

I cleaned up the copper plates and the took a piece of copper wiring and placed it across the connection point for the right turn signal which immediately caused the right turn signals to flash. I then used the copper wire to bridge the left turn signal parts of the switcher and nada.



But then while moving the wiring around the left signal lights turned on and stayed on. Ok. Interesting. Maybe I didn't properly clean the multi connector in the first place.



I put the switcher back together switched the left turn signal on, and then used my copper wire to bridge between the multi connector at the black wire(left turn signal wire), and the left signals started flashing!!
then I just connected the multi connector and the left signals worked. WTF. I didn't really do anything but take stuff apart and put it back together. Oh well.



But just when I thought all was good and I remounted the switcher to the handlebars and rerouted the signal wire through the head and connected the multi connector... The left signals no longer work.

It's too late for any more work tonight, but I feel I've made progress. I found out the switcher is fine and I either have a problem with the multi connector, or with the wire between the switcher and the multi connector. I'll do more testing in the morning.

[zed313]

I have had exactly the same problem with my blinker, and after checking of all connections, i've realized that two connections in my commodo were reversed... the commodo had been built in Canada...

[tom203]

Do your switch connections look like this one? Allegedly off 82 gs650, but different from my 81 which uses single rectangular plug. Note no "choke" stuff on switch

[William Groebe]

My switch does not look like the one you've got, tom203. It has the single box with a individual yellow wire coming off it which attaches to a separate wire.

[William Groebe]

With the left switcher turned on and the multi connector attached, if I just move the wire around a bit I can get the blinker to go, as if there's a pinch along the way somewhere, or like Grimly originally stated, I didn't clean the multi connector properly. Which I probably didn't. I checked again using the copper wire to bridge the signal connection in the multi connector and I can get the signal to work without fail every time, so it probably is the multi connector.

All I did originally was check for residue of any kind and then scrape at both connections with a scotch brite pad. Is there an approved better way to clean/fix connections?