turn signals and relay

[Billy Ricks]

Pat, it should be easy to tell. The ground of course is black with a white tracer. Then with anything to check for current use your switch to turn on one side of the signals. See which of the other two wires is hot. That's in and the other wire will be out.

[Anonymous]

mine worked out so that the wiring harness plugged straight up to the flasher, you may have to break the harness and attach the wires individually to the get the proper wire on the correct flasher terminal.

[Billy Ricks]

Pat,
Just a thought here, the three prong flasher may not be what you need at all. My flasher connector actually is the three prong type but still uses the two terminal flasher. If you stick it in the connector one way the signals either don't work right or not at all, I don't remember which. Turn it the other way though and all is fine. Worth a shot for what a cheap flasher cost.

[Anonymous]

That is a weird problem, it is tough to trouble shoot without the schematic. My best guess is that It could be the lamps are not drawing enough current to activate the flasher. The old flasher is probably stuck on, thats what my 83 was doing, lights stayed on. I think flashers are rated in watts. If you know the bulb type, you can calulate the power the two lamps draw.
Power = voltage X current, so for example if the lamps draw 1.5 amps ea the total power for the directionals would be 12x 3 = 36 watts. See if the flasher you purchased is at or around the calculated wattage, if it is much higher, that could be the problem. Another thing I found I had to do was, remove the bulbs in the lens, spray a circuit cleaner in the lamp assy and reinstall the bulb, and the connections from the lamp assy to the wiring harness, sometimes corossion sets in, and you get a bad connection or high resistance in the circuit. If you can find a deoxidizing electronic circuit cleaner such as Cramolin (Caig Lab's), TV tuner cleaner, etc. use that on all of the connections that plug together. Disconnect the connections, spay both connectors, and plug, unplug several times to clean the connections.
This is going to be routine preventitive maintenance on these older bikes.

Hope this helps.

[whodatpat]

Two prong in a Three prong flasher

Well you can put a square peg in a round hole. The two prong cheap flasher works fine in the three prong plug on my 80 gs850. The lights flash kind of slow, and a beter quality flasher might fix that. (I pulled the flasher out of my truck to do this test.) I figured I would get a refund when I go to pick up my special order from the dealer, However, the fine print on my reciept from the dealer says, "No refund on electrical parts and a 15% fee on all returns." But, not all is lost. I think I know the reason for the third prong. This bike suposedly has self cancling turn signals. I bet some of that logic is tied up i the $40.00 three prong flasher from the dealer. Self cancling turn signals might be a good idea for this newbie rider.
Now I know. ALWAYS ask The GS Resource Forum about a problem BEFORE you go to the dealer!

[whodatpat]

OEM wont work, autozone is fine

I got my 40 dollar flasher and installed it and the pights still come on solid for each direction that I turn the switch. The 2 prong in the 3 prong socket worked. Is the OEM broke toom or is there an even more expensive part broken somewhere?
1980 GS850G