LOUD MOUSE wrote:Good question there for sure.
Ya have a wiring diagram to see what's in front or back of that switch?. .......lm
brewsky wrote:Well I thought I had it figured out, until I tried to wire in the lights!!!!!
Turns out the brake light switches are normally CLOSED and open when the levers are pulled!
So how can the brake light come on when the circuit OPENS?
Finally figured it out after finding a wiring diagram that made sense:
Black wire from ignition winding normally goes to ground thru the normally closed brake switches (wired in series).
When either brake switch opens, black wire current is forced thru either the brake light or a resistor (wired in parallel) to ground. It would choose the bulb if it has less resistance than the resistor.
The purpose of the resistor appears to be to keep the bike running if the stoplight bulb burns out, since the black wire needs grounding for the ignition function.
The only other wiring diagram I could find shows a "3 foot jumper" instead of the resistor, so I tried that, and, as I thought .......no workee!
This one does make sense, though, the only problem is I can't read the resistor value on the diagram.
Who in the world could have thought up such a design?
I ended up just hardwiring the ignition winding and using the lighting winding for the stoplight also, since with this much HP I am almost always pretty close to stopped anyway!