GS850G No headlight or blinkers!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi all, I need to tap the collective resources of the group yet again.
I have an 81 GS850G with Vetter fairing and my headlight, taillight and blinkers
stopped working. Everything else is fine, just no headlight and no
blinkers. I checked all the fuses with an ohmmeter, went through the
wiring harness cleaning connectors, unplugged and reconnected
everything... Still the same. The strange thing is that if I
disconnect the blinker control unit (NOT the blinker relay) the
blinkers work perfectly, but still no headlight. Hook it back up and
no headlight or blinkers. Does the blinker control unit only control the auto cancel feature? I went through the troubleshooting sequence
in the clymers manual and it appears that the blinker switch may be
bad. Since it controls the hi/lo beam, I suppose it could affect the
headlight. The danged thing costs $94 bucks new and I hate to buy one
before getting some input. Has anyone else had this problem and if so
how did you fix it??? Thanks

[Jay B]

Take it apart and see if you can jump any of the connections and get something to work. If you can then you have found your problem. Try giving a good clean first.

[Anonymous]

GS850G headlight problem

Thanks for the replies both here and via email. The problem turned out to be the handlebar mounted switch itself. I disassembled it, cleaned it, lubed it, and reassembled it. Now it all works just fine. Good to be back on the road again!! The switch was kinda tedious to take apart and put back together, but it beats paying the $100 or so for a new switch.

[KGB]

One other thing to keep an eye on are the fuses themselves.
I went thru the same tedious process, turns out the fuse broke inside itself.
The glass part was broken inside the silver/connector part.
I was able to spin the glass around. ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

My fuse block is famous for doing this to fuses, vibration......
I keep a bunch of BUSS fuses on the bike.
I run a 90W low/100W high beam so I changed it to a 20amp from the 10amp.

Keith

[Anonymous]

What a coincidence, I just went through this on the weekend. First check the fuse as KGB points out.

My problem was that the ground wire was broken clean in the Vetter wiring harness. Is it just your front end lights that are gone, or have you lost all lighting?

[KnuckleBuster]

It must be that time of year because I just had the same thing happen too. I was reaching for the phone, getting ready to order a new signal control unit when I thought, what the heck, lets just replace all the fuses for kicks. A package of fuses fixed the problems and saved me a ton of money I could have wasted on the control unit.