lighting problems
 

1989 xt600

I am experiencing some odd symtoms with the xt. Low beam barely shows, high is better.
When I hit the brakes, front or back, the headlight beam gets stronger, then dims.
When I rev it, it dims.
I am getting no turn signals. Checked the bulbs, they are ok.
I checked the battery tonight, found the pos. connection was loose, tightened it, no change.
A few months ago, I changed out the foot brake light switch. I do have running and brake lights.
Rarely see the neutral light come on.
Is it possible that the loose connection on the battery didn't allow it to fully charge? I have seen the neutal light be affected by a low battery.
This is my first post at the Hubb. I have been riding the central mountains of arizona for over 30 years. I also bought my first road bike this year. a 1981 bmw r100rs. Looking forward to getting to know it better!

That is strange that lights dim when eng reved! On the left side of bike about where the boot attaches to carb, look for a two white wire plug coming from alt rotor /stater going to the rectifier. make sure it has good connection. Have you locked your forks reciently? The key switch will do this after doing this on a bike this age. New switch is over $200 us.:welcome:

Ps a good way to check if alt is workin does the horn function? Have to rev to work?

Sounds to me like your battery is toast. I had similar problems. Replaced the battery solved it.

Step 1: Buy a multimetre
Step 2: Check the battery

HAd the same problem. Took a while to figure out, but it turned out the fat battery-cable from the battery to the starter-relay was broken (on my bike that is the only cable from the battery plus. At the relay it splits between the relay and the rest of the circuit). As ussual with electrical problems sometimes the problem was there, and sometime (ussualy when you were trying to find the fault,) it wasn't.

The headlight dims when you rev up because the voltageregulator kind of works in steps. When you idle it doen't do anything yet, but when you rev up and the voltage goes up (and the battery is not there to 'help' to regulate) the regulator kicks in and the headlight dims.

Peter
(I have a '88 XT600Z Tenere)