Electrical questions

[photorider]

Hello All,
I'm trying to get the electrics sorted out on my '76 R60/6. I have some erratic behavior with the instrument lights.

The main issue is:
When I turn on the headlight, the turn signal indicator stops working in the instrument cluster. Turn the lights off, everything works as it should.

By the looks of things, somebody has been in the headlight bucket and things are a bit of a mess in there. I got a wiring diagram and tried returning everything to the stock setup. AFter everything was connected matching it up the best I could, here is what I found:


1. I found this odd, but if I take out the bottom 8A fuse in the headlight bucket the instrument lights work normally (including the turn signal indicator in the dash) but the taillight stops working.

2. The front brake switch is not connected to anything (could this be the cause of my problems?)

3. I noticed there is wiring in the headlight bucket for things I don't have (e.g. volt meter, clock). Best to leave those disconnected or does it matter?

4. Clutch switch, MIA.

Any help is greatly appreciated, don't know what else to try.

[20774]

My diagram shows that the front brake switch should be connected to one side of terminal 15, the same as the rear brake switch. I'd reconnect that and see if things get better.

The clock/voltmeter connections are there for the R90S models. Probably wouldn't hurt to connect them, but then the other ends of some of those wires will be hot (electrically) when the bike is on. Probably just leave as is.

[skiteach]

When I turn on the headlight, the turn signal indicator stops working in the instrument cluster. Turn the lights off, everything works as it should.

Classic symptoms of poor grounding.

[PGlaves]

Nothing is more cobbled up than a cobbled up homebrewed accessorized deaccesorized Airhead headlight bucket with stray wires, wrong colored wires, and clipped, snipped, and wadded wires.

It was something in the water, maybe that Strontium 90 stuff that threatened the milk supply, that caused BMW owners by the hundreds, to flunk their amateur electrician's test working inside those headlight buckets.

I have found several bikes where the only way to get it right was to disconnect everything, remove everything extraneous, and then one-by-one, reconnect the stock wires properly. In some cases I had to look outside the bucket to find the snipped, clipped, and wadded harness wiring that had been disconnected.

To do this you need a good wiring diagram for the specific bike, and even then some tracing of wires is needed because not all diagrams are correct and BMW made some wiring changes on-the-fly between years.

[photorider]

Thanks for all the help guys. Sounds like the best option is to disconnect everything and start sorting out that bowl of spaghetti in there. I've got a decent wiring diagram so I think I'll have a go at it this weekend. Thanks again.