78 GS1000E turn signal problems

[dluszcz]

OK, I've been to BassCliff's site. I bought a new flasher. Bought a new relay. I didn't buy the base, just used clips for the relay.

I followed the directions, which was orange/green (on my bike it's just orange) to the 'E' terminal.

Ran a wire from the chassis to the 'B' terminal for ground.

Light blue wire to relay terminal 'L'.

Nothing.

I did the test where I connect the light green wire to the light green with black wire and I get the turn signals to flash when I touch them to the relay terminal 'L'.

Black and black/blue wires are connected together and also flash when I touch them to the relay terminal 'L'. The light on the dash also lights up showing the signals in use.

However, I cannot get the signals to work properly. I think I have a problem with the aftermarket handlebar controls I bought. I have the wires hooked up.

Horn works. High beams and low beams work. When I hit the turn signals, nothing.

So, my question is, I know I missed something, but cannot put my finger on it. I have the wires, light green, light green with black stripe, and both black wires disconnected from the 4 wire connector on my bike that went to the signal terminal that is not long on my bike.

Maybe I've been working too long in the hot garage and I'm not thinking straight but touching the wires in a variety of configurations I can get lights, flashing, what have you, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong to get them to work properly.

Also, I still have the following wires not hooked up to anything from the handlebar controls:

white/red wire open that goes to the rectifier
white/green wire (that changes to green white and goes to the AC generator) open at the handlebar control
gray wire that goes to the speedometer
brown/yellow wire is dead on both ends

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated. I want to get the turn signals to work before I tear everything apart and clean up the wiring.

 

[dluszcz]

I have the orange/green wire going through the wire connector to a plain orange wire hooked up to relay terminal 'E'.

I have a wire run from the chassis to ground the relay hooked up to relay terminal 'B'.

Testing the wires, I have connected light green to the light green with black stripe and I touch that connection to relay terminal 'L' and the right side turn signals flash.

I have connected the black with blue stripe to the black wire and I touch that connection to relay terminal 'L' and the left side turn signals flash.

Flasher works.

At the hand control unit, hooked up the brown/yellow wire to the orange wire.

At the relay, hooked up the light blue wire to the brown/yellow wire and touched that to relay terminal 'L'.

The turn signals light up, but no blinky blinky.

 

[dluszcz]

After reading just about every post related to turn signals in here, I think that the problem I have right now is that I don't have the factory front turn signals.

I had to use 2 bullets for the front turn signals and because those are LED, I think that may not be drawing enough power and that may be the problem. I have 2 pairs of replacement turn signals coming in next week and I'll have to wait til those come in to see if that is the issue.

I did try to use both bulb turn signals on one side only and they are still just solid, not flashing. They still only flash when I hook touch the green and black connections described below.

Maybe spending too much time in the hot garage is clouding my thinking. Still need some help and can't find it in any of the threads that I've read.

If anyone had any ideas, I'll try anything to get these signals to work.

 

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Your bike is a little older than mine and has some different wiring. Have you a manual and wiring diagram? As I said in my little flasher guide, I had to swap some wires around until I found the right connections to get the blinkers to work.

In your searches did you find references to the loop of wire to the headlight switch that cuts out one leg of the stator? Since headlights are mandatory this renders this loop useless. Read my r/r replacement guide.

Does your bike still have a separate regulator and rectifier? You can simplify your wiring with an integrated r/r unit (from duaneage). Connect the three stator output wires directly to the three r/r input wires and do away with all the extra wiring to the separate units. But I digress...

What flasher did you use? Thermal flashers need to "see" a certain amount of load (resistance) in the circuit in order to operate. LEDs have very little resistance. Electronic flashers don't care (too much) about the total load and will just flash at a predetermined rate.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

I have no idea what you are trying to do with a relay?? But the 4 prong plug from the turn signal module need to be cut off. Connect the green and green/black plug wires together and connect the red/black with the black
together and plug it into the harness where it was removed. Connect a two prong flasher into the orange wire that runs from the TS switch to the fuse block. You also need to get a different TS switch that has a detent for the switch, so it can be turned on and off without holding the switch.
LED signals is another problem

 

[dluszcz]

I already contacted Duaneage for the Honda rr and will hopefully have the funds next week.
On my bike, the black with red tracer is for the speedometer according to my wiring diagram.
I have both the Haynes and a printout from Basscliff's site for the wiring. Haven't dug much into the rr stator stuff yet.
I planned on getting the turn signals to work and note all connections before I clean up all the wires.
My TSCU is shot and that's why I now have a relay. I have a buss552 flasher from the auto store.
In the lhs control unit on the handlebar, I still have the white/green, white /red, and gray wires with no home to the aftermarket unit.
I tried a lot of combinations of the wires and I'm sure there are some I haven't done yet. I'm going to work on it later this afternoon.
I've considered yanking the wires and trying to start from scratch. Just frustrated that I can't find the right combo of wires to get it to work.

 

[BassCliff]

Hi,

In theory, you should be able to plug that 522 into the stock flasher unit socket and get your signals to work. Can you reconnect the blinker circuit back as in stock to test? The wire from the TSCU is the one which remains disconnected.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

 

[dluszcz]

Now that I have taken a 2 hour nap after working all night and going to a baby birthday party, I'm back at tackling the issues.

After more reading on here, I discovered my problem. I bought an EP34 electronic flasher to eliminate any potential problems. Either flasher will work but my problem is this:

On the 78 and 79, if you disconnect the TSCU, you have to run a wire in series to get the circuit to close.

This is where I'm lost. I cannot find the right post to tell me what wires to hook up where. I found a couple and tried their solutions. Worked for them, but not for me. I still have a solid turn signal and no blinky blinky.

I'm still searching but if anyone knows what wires need to be bridged or run in series or whatever I need to do, please let me know.

 

[dluszcz]

Holy cow! I finally have turn signals.

Because I replaced my old fuse box, I created a dedicated turn signal circuit.

For those of you who ever encounter this, here is how to wire the simple 3 prong electronic flasher:

From the fuse box, run a wire to terminal 'E'.

From the flasher, run a wire from terminal 'L' to the handlebar indicator control orange (positive) wire.

Such a simple solution and yet, I spent way tooooo many hours on this.

The answer was in multiple forum posts, I just had to decipher them and figure out how to get it to work on my bike.

The stumbling block was wiring the flasher in series because of the way the 1978 and 1978 GS1000 TSCU were wired. I do not believe this will affect 1980 and up models as a lot of the info I found on those years was basically a simple plug and use and loss of the self canceling turn signals, which I do not have as well now.

I hope my pain is someone else's gain as there is a ton of useful information on this website and a lot of helpful people.

Thanks to all for your help.