Turn indicator glows, taillights and turn signals acting weird

GL05 said:

Check the large wiring connector under the passenger area of the seat. There is one small wire (green if I remember correctly), which supplies the negative for the stop, tail & turn signals. This wire may have a bad connection in the plug.
I have seen this happen on some earlier models with the same symptoms that you described.

The fix was to cut the wire on both sides of the connector and splice it together.

Click to expand...

I had this problem 3,000 miles from home, didn't find it then but moving the wires around while I was in a Nashville motel parking lot fixed it till I got home.

I started installing my Bushtec Trailer hitch the following Spring and noticed the rear lighting was acting weird again. After a lot of poking and prodding I found the problem. The main wiring connector under the seat that connects all the rear lighting. The green ground wire circuit inside the connecting block had arced the connecting spades into an intermittent connection. It had actually burned the ends off the metal connectors inside the plastic housing. I made a temporary fix by quick connecting a bypass wire around the connector for the ground wire. (All other connectors inside the housing appeared to be undamaged).



After confirming the problem was fixed, I cut the ground wire from the connector, then soldered in and shrink wrapped the bypass wire, no more problems. Rear light seems brighter now too!

Two things about taking this problem to the dealer (based on others experience whom have already gone down this road).

First they (The dealer) may claim the problem is your fault for adding additional lighting to the Factory circuit, (I had added Showchrome saddlebag and trunk molding LED lighting on this circuit, plus a Hondaline Interior Trunk Light). This may be true, but Honda is the one that has installed an inadequate ground circuit.

If they do decide to fix the problem, it will involve replacing the entire affected wiring harness's. Figure several weeks of down time at a minimum and you will end up with brand new factory wiring, with the potential for the exact same problem reoccurring!

For me, soldering a piece of scrape wire was a lot better option. This is a fairly common problem that can be a bear to trace down...

I've just had this same problem on my '06 model bike:

• no tail or brake lights
• indicator lights all glow dull constantly (including the ones in the dash)
• no indicator function
• no hazard light function with ignition on (though, oddly, they did work fine with the key in the Accessories position)

After checking all fuses and finding none blown, I realised that it sounded like a ground problem. So I ran a temporary jump lead from a tail light ground to the bike's chassis and that instantly fixed the problem.

A quick search on this forum soon revealed a known issue with the ground signal passing through the trunk/saddlebag sub-wire harness connector (14-pin gray) under the seat - and sure enough that was the cause.

My 1st photo shows where it is located on '06-and-up bikes - note that it is C31 rather than C15.



The next photo shows the female pin for the ground signal - note how it seems to have partially disintegrated!



That seems very bad for a bike which is only just over 2 years old (though it's an '06 bike, it's one of a number imported into the UK by Honda in 2010 which had sat in crates for 4 years, apparently). That location in a boot under the seat can't have seen much in the way of bad weather. Here is a close-up of the pin.



The next photo shows the MALE pin for the ground signal - it doesn't seem much different than others in that connector (maybe just a little pitted in places).



The final photo shows how I snipped the ground wires entering each side of the connector and soldered on wires with bullet connectors to make a jumper lead round the connector.