Weird electrical issue? Help!

nick5oh

Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2015
Messages
359
Location
Hunstville, Ontario
So I recently pulled the engine harness for rub through repair. One single yellow wire was shorting causing headlight and cluster light issues off n on.
The other night I stopped for gas. Had high beam on, pumped gas, started the sled and no high beam bulb. Ok no problem high beam filament burnt right. Parked it for the night. Rode next day and all of a second after a couple hours into the ride I noticed no tach. Thinking it was related to the high beam bulb I turned the high beam on and boom the tach worked again. Flick to low beam and instantly no tach. Then today the tach worked on low beam and high beam, but if I let the machine idle the tach needle bounces then goes to zero. Rev the sled up and the tach works again. Also noticed the lights on the cluster are very very dim. As well as the low beam bulb is very very dim. Flick high beam on and although it doesn’t turn on the instant I do it the cluster gets bright like normal. Flick low beam and dim cluster and dim low beam bulb as well as tach not working at idle.
Do I have a voltage regulator issue? My heated visor as well as grips and thumb still work. Sled runs like a champ still. Possible I have a short on the hood harness?
Btw the sled is a 99 srx 700. Thanks in advance
 

what you have is the harness under the engine still has a rub thru, it only takes 1 strand to touch another. When you lose the tach and get it back by changing the dimmer switch the engine harness is almost always 99% at fault, your gonna have to pull it out from under engine again and look at every wire that can touch ground. sometimes the outer plastic coating is worn and it doesn't look like theres wire hanging out but it will still go to another circuit/ground out. This is why I will repair each wire separately and then place whole harness in convolute platic loom tubing.
 
Yes mr viper I assume some sort of electrical issue. I made sure 100% that the engine harness was good. One single yellow wire that works the light and cluster light was chaffed and shorting intermittently. I fixed it and inspected the whole harness anally lol. Retapped and convoluted tubing for the whole harness as well as a rerouting to be extra safe.
I hear you on I may have missed something but after moving some hood harness wiring around and riding today I found no more cluster dim light issue as well as no more tach issue. Same brightness on cluster lighting(full) whether high or low beam(which is normal) and I also noticed that I have no high or low beam bulb working. Pulled the bulb and found filaments open on both high and low beam. Swapped in a known good bulb and she works. Still not convinced it’s just a bulb though. I guess I will pull the engine harness and hood harness to look things over again. Thanks for the help buddy
 
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Yes mr viper I assume some sort of electrical issue. I made sure 100% that the engine harness was good. One single yellow wire that works the light and cluster light was chaffed and shorting intermittently. I fixed it and inspected the whole harness anally lol. Retapped and convoluted tubing for the whole harness as well as a rerouting to be extra safe.
I hear you on I may have missed something but after moving some hood harness wiring around and riding today I found no more cluster dim light issue as well as no more tach issue. Same brightness on cluster lighting(full) whether high or low beam(which is normal) and I also noticed that I have no high or low beam bulb working. Pulled the bulb and found filaments open on both high and low beam. Swapped in a known good bulb and she works. Still not convinced it’s just a bulb though. I guess I will pull the engine harness and hood harness to look things over again. Thanks for the help buddy

I have seen dual filament bulbs where the end of the broken filament would make contact with one of the posts or the filament of the other circuit, often times intermittently.
 
while your at it, when you pull the wire harness again , put some split loom tubing on the bundle before sliding it back under. that will pretty much nullify any wire harness issues going forward.
 
I have seen dual filament bulbs where the end of the broken filament would make contact with one of the posts or the filament of the other circuit, often times intermittently.

That makes sense. I have seen it too in the automotive world. Rarely but it is possible. Funny thing is at the start of the day where everything went back to normal my hood slammed shut when I was looking at things warming it up. Maybe that slam broke the low beam filament and made everything normal again? I’m putting a bulb in today. We will see what happens and I will report back.
 
So I changed out the headlight bulb and ran it 60 km. No issues yet. Hopefully not a stator issue. I read a buncha threads with this issue or something similar. A lot of fixes were suggested but the problem is people come on sites like this for help and a lot of the times don’t report back with there findings/fixes for the issue.
I am riding again today if I get any issues I’ll report back again but thanks for the help guys.
 


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