Dead XB12R - Hope someone can help. Finished a local biker games competition, left bike for an hour unattended. Went to start it, and guages did their initial sweep and the two red indicator lights came on for 1/2 second then died and then immediately the high beam indicator came on. Turned ignition SW off and on and from then on only high beam comes on when key is set to run. No more guage sweep, no two bottom red lights, no fuel pump priming sound. High beam switch doesn't control the high beam from either low or high position. If I press the front high beam finger switch, it turns off the high beam when it is depressed and when I release that switch, it goes back to being on. (Shown both by the blue indicator lamp in the dash and actually with the high beam headlight on). Very strange. 07 XB12R with 24000 miles on it. I checked all of the fuses while standing there, all looked good, and nothing happened by swapping them around with the spare and each other. I couldn't do much else in the parking lot there. First time it let me down and I had to push it 6 blocks home to the garage. In the past 6 months, I had noticed about 2 intermittent times that the ignition sequence did not happen when turning the ignition key to on, which was remedied by turning it to off, then back to on and a normal startup sequence happened. (btw, I did win two of the 6 events ! )
I would test the ignition switch wiring and the switch its self. I think you will have to start tracking the problem down by eliminating one item at a time. If you had the issue before and resolved it by turning the ignition off and back on again I would definatley start with the ignition switch.
well done on winning 1/3 of the events :D
Thanks for the quick reply ! I will give that a shot tomorrow. This time the difference is the high beam light coming on as soon as the switch is turned to the on position, and staying on regardless whether the toggle switch is in low beam or high beam position. The other two times I had absolutely nothing happening when turning the ignition switch to the on position. But you are right, starting with the ignition switch and I will also verify the fuses with my DVM as in the parking lot, could only do that by sight and by swapping.
The 1st thing to check on all 03~07 XB's is the regulator connections. Down below, to the left-side of the cam cover. Buell upgraded the regulator connections from a "flat-pin" style plug to a "round-pin" style plug starting with the 08's for the XB line. This was to prevent premature arcing, burning, corrosion. The round-pin upgrade provided higher resistance to excess voltage loads. Obviously stemming from high speed, high revs and constant WOT (Wide Open Throttle) instances.07 XB12R with 24000 miles on it
Thanks for the tip 07Bolt ! I checked that tonight. I have the flat style connector and they look perfectly new, no evidence of arcing etc. Also, a few more bits. I was mistaken, it was my low beam that is on when ignition goes to ON, not highbeam. It is just the high beam indicator that comes on and stays on, but just the low beam light. If I use the highbeam switch, it will turn on as well. I do feel the ignition relay physically pull in with both a click and by my fingers on it when I turn the key to ON and back to OFF. The right handlebar Stop/Run red switch also turns off the same ignition relay. My Green Neutral light stopped working a few days ago, so if I pull in the clutch the yellow start button does pull in the relay marked START. However, it doesn't engage the starter at all. Battery voltage is 12.7 V, and I left it on the battery charger tonight. I don't yet have the Security T45 bit to be able to remove the ignition switch to take that apart yet. Final strange thing I noticed, is if I leave the key in the ON position for more than 10 seconds, when I turn it back to OFF, both speedo and tach needles do a full sweep then back to zero. (Normally I see them do that as soon as I turn the key to ON) Now, if I only have the key on for less than about 10 seconds, the needles do not do this. Thats it for tonight, and I will have to find that special T45 bit tomorrow. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated !
Check the plug that the headlights plug into.( not the single prong plug, follow wire higher up)4 prong plug with 3 wires if I remember correctly.
My plug lost the ground to one light,and power to the other light, and it made the high beam light stay on regardless of position.
The plug would not come apart, Felt like it slightly melted together, i just cut mine out and bypassed it.
I checked briefly today. Battery fully charged, about 14.3 v. Doing the same thing as described in my last post. I didn't have much time to do checks today and still didn't get that T45 bit. I did verify that each fuse is good. I will have to print the wiring diagram large size and start verifying and crossing off as I go thru the wires. Probably won't have time to dig into it until the weekend.
I was just going over this with my cousin and he made a very simple suggestion that I will try next time I'm back at the bike. I will try disconnecting the battery. While going through the wiring diagram, the items that are not turning on all seem to be ECM related. I am curious to see if powering off the ECM will reset it? Sorry, just thinking out loud. After going through the wiring diagram, I had already done this by swapping the fuses. This effectively took power away fom the ECM and then separately from the gauge cluster when I had pulled each fuse.
Did you check your ballasts/ relays on the left side of the cluster; opposite of the other two prong fuse box?
Mystery solved. The ground stud where it is welded to the subframe had the weld partially broken off. So that explains why certain things made no sense, yet headlights, signal lights, relays etc seemed to be fine. They had their own ground wire directly off the battery, whereas the ECM and main starter which use the frame ground didn't have proper ground. I used someones hint on here of directly jumping ground from battery to engine head and things instantly went back to normal and bike started. I feel like an idiot, should have checked that connection very early on in the process. Oh well ! Now I just need the stud to be rewelded back to the subframe and reassemble.
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