auto off turn signal wont auto off.

[Guest]

I have the auto off turn signals on my 80 gs1000g, they were working a month ago, now they wont auto off, am I missing something, or is there a good place to start troubleshooting?

[chuck hahn]

The TSCUs on our 78 1000s are wonky and will stop working too..something to do with the timer or whatever is inside the big black box. Not saying your year has the same issues but its a possibility I guess.

[eil]

Sometimes the turn signal control unit (TSCU) gives up the ghost and there's nothing to be done for it but try to find a new one. Unfortunately used ones aren't cheap. Someone on the forum had set out to make their own, I'm not sure what became of it.

One thing you can do is check your wiring harness connections. In particular, there's a wire which goes up to a reed switch in the speedometer. (You probably hear it go ping ping ping when you wheel the bike around in the garage.) If that doesn't have a good connection back to the TSCU, it won't shut off. Obviously if the speedo cable is not connected to the speedometer, the signals also won't shut off.

[shameless]

Where do I look for this unit to start tracking my wires?

[Steve]

The reed switch itself is built into the speedometer housing. The two wires that feed it are blue and black, both of them with red stripes. The other end of those wires is at the TSCU.

The only connections that I know of are the bullet connectors in the headlight bucket and a 6-pin connector near the TSCU.

Since the operating parameters for the system to operate require movement, you either have to ride the bike ... or simulate it.
When I tested mine, I had the bike on the center stand and put a small jack under the front of the engine to lift the front wheel off the floor. Find a sanding disk or grinding wheel that is about 3-4" in diameter, stick in an electric drill that will spin over 2000 RPM. Hold it against the front wheel to get the wheel spinning forward. Get it going as fast as it will go, look at the speed indicated on the meter. If it is over 15 (mine was about 22), you can test the system.

Turn the key ON, turn on a turn signal, it should be flashing nicely. Spin the front wheel. After about 10 seconds, the signal should turn OFF, if everything is working correctly. If it's not working correctly, you can put a continuity meter on the leads from the speedo, spin the wheel and watch for pulses. That will verify the condition of the reed switch. If you pull the connector apart near the TSCU and check the black/red and blue/red wires coming from the speedo, you can verify the condition of the wires. You can verify with a voltmeter or test light that the TSCU is getting power, you can also verify the ground connection with the light.

If all those checks are OK, it's time to look for a TSCU.

.

[rockford]

I've had 2 of them go 'belly up' in the last 6 years so I always keep a spare. They are on Ebay all the time and there are usually quite a few of them. I'm convinced that the sellers often don't know what they are, based on the descriptions. New ones are available but you can get very good deals on used ones if you check Ebay often. Taking off the old one and putting on a new one takes about 3 or 4 minutes.

[Nessism]

The early version TSCU's are the troublesome version with high failure rate. The newer type, which came out in 1980 I think, are much more reliable and relatively easy to find. Suzuki used them on a few different models over various years.

[rockford]

I didn't realize that they were on bikes earlier than 1980 but I guess I'd never really thought about it. In my experience, when they go bad, they do it gradually (works sometimes, and sometimes not). The reason I mention this is because if you find that it just stops working all at once, I would suspect it's probably simply a bad connection.