Headlight Not Shining

[Bill]

My Vision has been down a few weeks.  I noticed my headlight wasn't on and by accident I pulled on the starter button and it was hanging up about halfway... headlight came on.  Cleaned and reinstalled... all good.  A few days later I hit start button..nothing.  Started checking things and finally pulled starter....oil filled and very poor brushes...very gunky.  Rebuilt starter (and cleaned carbs for second time, this time with new jets) put everything back together.  Starts and runs but no headlight and no instrument lights.  I must say that the wiring gremlins have been behind the headlight and created havoc and some point in the past.  I don't know what I'm going to do about that.  Bulb is good though I checked with direct connection to battery. Fuses all appear good.  Putting it back together I have a blue wire I don't know where to connect.  I think it was connected to either the positive or negative side of the battery or maybe to one side of the starter solenoid?  It comes from a Bosch relay located to the immediate left of the fuse box, black about 1.5 inch square.  .  It is attached by bracket to the rear fender and connected to the wiring harness via 5 plugs but only has four wires coming out, one of which is the offending blue wire.  Looked forever on the wiring diagram but can't find this relay and blue wire.  Can somebody tell me where this wire goes and also offer any advice on the headlight? 

[Re-Vision]

Between the Fuse Panel and the Battery you should find a Three Pin Connector and each side should have a blue Wire. One Blue Wire goes into the Harness and the other connects to the Brake/Tails Lights. Determine if one of these is your Blue wire.

Take care of the Blue wire and then we can locate the problem with your Headlights. I suspect bad contacts in the High/Low Switch.

PS What type of Termination does the Blue wire have?

BDC

[Bill]

Pic of offending wire attached.  Blue wire is coming from relay with high tech white paper arrow pointing at it.  Wire terminates with a connector that is the same size as the connectors that fit on the battery post. Relay is Bosch unit.  Other wires coming from this unit are brown, red, and yellow.  Yellow wire is connected to one side of the solenoid. 

[Re-Vision]

Your Bosch relay is a non-standard item and no wires are normally terminated with a lug-ring near the Fuse Block. Might be able to figure out what's happening if you can trace each wire to the relay coil and contacts. Where does the other end of the Sky-Blue(Sb) wire go? Whomever made the modification apparently was connecting to the Battery with that ring-lug.     BDC

[Bill]

Thanks for the reply.  No wonder I couldn't find it in the wiring diagram.  I sure looks official and is a good lesson I've learned over and over....mark everything even if you're SURE you won't forget.  I've got the Vision running again and your suspicion of the dimmer switch was probably correct.  I took it apart, checked voltages all the way to the dimmer switch which was registering zero.  Sprayed everything in the switch with electrical cleaner and swabbed with cotton swab and headlight will work on high beam.  At least I can take it out and test the bike.  I started to take the dimmer switch apart but rethought it.  Looks like it might be difficult to repair/replace.  Thought I'd better explore this site first to see what other owners have done.  I know I've got a 50/50 chance of hooking the blue wire up to the correct battery terminal but that seems sloppy so I guess for now I just leave it disconnected and see what, if anything, stops working.  My wife thinks I'm crazy with this old bike which I spend 10 times more time working on than riding. Oh well.  Maybe someday I'll get it sorted out but somehow I doubt it.   

[Re-Vision]

Don't want to see you give up on the bike. The Sky-blue (Sb) wire on the schematic normally has Ground applied to it through the  Neutral Switch. Looks like they were getting around the Starter Circuit Cut-Out relay. Go ahead and take apart your Dimmer Switch and Start Switch and clean them, I'll sell you reasonably priced replacements if you need them. Would still like to know where the other end of the Sky blue wire opposite the Lug-ring goes to.     BDC