Speedometer lights and onboard buttons not working

Hey guys,

So this happened to me last Friday when I was about to ride home from work -

I noticed that my speedometer gauges and backlight were not coming up; nor was my signal lights, honk, T-mode switch, and hazard light able to work. I was, however, able to start up my motorcycle.

Rode it blind to my go-to workshop some 20 kilometres away and the mechanic said that there probably is a broken wire somewhere in the wiring harness and that everything had to be removed in order to find the fault. Told him to give me a quick fix (he did some sort of bypass with a copper wire in the fuse box) and send me on my way because I couldn't afford any more downtime on my Swing.

Has anyone experienced this issue before? I'd assume that I was able to start up and ride my Swing blind, that this is purely a wiring issue. However, I am hesitant to get it fixed because I've seen the wiring in this sh*tbox... and it isn't pretty and would probably cost an arm and a leg.

Appreciate your wisdom, thoughts, and advice. Thanks!

Personal opinion…these are older bikes now, so you’re right in that it would be an expensive fix, OR, if you had the resources and time, you could elect to tear it all down yourself (I just watched a YouTube video on taking the front plastics off and it didn’t look all that hard, just time consuming), start at the instruments and see where the broken wire is (and I would assume the shop manual would be very helpful as well).

Good luck but I’m sure you can find the short vs broken wire.

Taking all the fairing off and then putting it back on again, especially with a few broken or seized fixings, is a long job even once you know what your doing. Paying a mechanic hours to do that is going to be expensive.
Why not strip all the fairing yourself and then trailer it down to your mechanic? Then you are only paying him to do the clever stuff.

What exactly your mechanic did to get you back into service? Which fusse?…Where did the new wire go? If there is a “field expedient” for getting someone up & running and back home then we should know about it.

We all benefit from shared information.

I agree 100% with steve_h80’s suggestion: strip off the body panels and trailer it to your mechanic.

https://www.silverwing600.com/t11101-remove-front-fairing-how-to-video

FWIW, the overwhelming majority electrikery problems are connections or parts related ... not the wire themselves. Seems to me your tech knew what circuit to ... er ... short circuit. That's where I would start.

I must admit I missed the "field expedient" bit. I'm not sure what you could in a fuse box with a lump of copper wire other than bypass a fuse!

steve_h80 wrote:

I must admit I missed the "field expedient" bit. I'm not sure what you could in a fuse box with a lump of copper wire other than bypass a fuse!

Bypassing a fuse most likely will end up letting the smoke out, NOT GOOD.

Cosmic_Jumper wrote:

What exactly your mechanic did to get you back into service? Which fusse?…Where did the new wire go? If there is a “field expedient” for getting someone up & running and back home then we should know about it.

We all benefit from shared information.

I agree 100% with steve_h80’s suggestion: strip off the body panels and trailer it to your mechanic.

https://www.silverwing600.com/t11101-remove-front-fairing-how-to-video

Unfortunately, I do not know the details. If I were to hazard a guess, the mechanic took a copper wire and "attached" it to the wire harness, thereby bypassing some of the faulty wires? It's hap-hazard, but it did the job for a good 2 weeks.

My dashboard lights went out this morning again and I decided to just send it to my main workshop (which I trust wholeheartedly). Got the mechanic to open up the front cowl and check the internal wiring.

Turns out the issue was a burned out relay. It's the one closest to the fusebox. It was evident that the plastic component of the relay melted quite noticeably.

Anyway, he also helped to sort out and remove some redundant wiring left by the previous owners and set me on my way. A 4-hour job which cost me just slightly over USD100.

With that said, I hope this is the last fix I have to do in a long time. Feels like this Swing of mine spends more time in the workshop than on the road!

Anyway, he also helped to sort out and remove some redundant wiring left by the previous owners and set me on my way. A 4-hour job which cost me just slightly over USD100. <<>> that is a heckuva deal at 100 USD. A good independent shop here is that for 1 hour, dealers a LOT more. It's to have it fixed.

Local shop rates.

$ 100.00 standard, 1 hour minimum.
$ 150.00 if you watch.
$ 175.00 if you try to help.
$ 200.00 if you worked on it first and screw it up.