New Speedo/Tach: No Neutral/Oil Light

[bcware]

I just installed a new speedometer and tachometer. Everything works except the neutral light and oil pressure light.

The new units appear to be all LEDs. I re-used to the stock harness/pigtail; I grafted it on to the new clocks and everything is wired exactly as the oem gauges were. Everything is soldered and shrink wrapped.

The only thing I changed was adding diodes so that a single turn signal indicator light works for both the left and right signals (this shouldn't matter anyway).

I tested the lights on the new speedo manually with a battery: they light up fine.

I checked for continuity from the headlight pigtail to the neutral and oil pressure switches themselves: just fine.

The oil pressure and neutral switches were working fine before I put the bike away for the winter.

I noticed that the neutral and oil lights have their own shared but separate ground (?). Is there something special about these lights? Am I missing something? I am actually unsure as to whether this shared wire is a ground or not; both lights have a brown wire going to them. The neutral has a blue wire and the oil light has a black/red wire. The 2e wiring diagram is terrible; it is not labeled well.

I have not run the bike yet. I just have the battery in with the ignition on. All other lights work. I have turned the engine over a few times with the kick start. I have shifted in to first and second and back to neutral and I am still getting nothing.

Another odd thing I noticed is that when I turn the ignition from off to on or on to off the neutral and oil pressure lights flash for a fraction of a second. None of the other lights in the new speedo do this.

 

[16VGTIDave]

I may be way off with this as I'm not familiar with your bike...

I am thinking that the stock lights are powered when the ignition is on and the switches provide the ground path. If I understand what you wrote, the new lights are expecting power to be fed to them and have their own grounds. Opposite of the stock wiring...

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[ksqrly]

The two browns that go into your gauges are the power wires. The switches act as gounds as 16VGTIDAVE said. the blue wire goes down to your neutral switch and is internally grounded when you are in neutral. same case with the black/red wire and the oil pressure switch. So if you supply the power of the indicator lights with brown and the grounds of the lights with the blue and black/red wire you should be fine. From the sounds of it I am guessing you thought the common brown was a ground? That is the opposite case, so a simple swap of the wires should have you going.

 

[bcware]

You are both correct; the brown wires are the power source and the colored individual wires (blue and black/red) are the grounds.

I did initially have it backwards (the 2e wiring diagram doesn't make this clear).

The problem is that the brown wire/s are not supplying any power for some reason.

I swapped the colored wires and grabbed power from the dark blue wires coming from the ignition instead and they both work fine now. I still don't know why the brown power wire/s aren't working, but it doesn't really matter I suppose!

Thanks for the help.