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'83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 2:11 am
by nunnsie
Hi,

I just recently purchased this Aero and replaced the battery since the one it came with was toast. It starts and runs fine but I'm seeing two electrical issues. 1) the oil light never goes out despite having a full tank. 2) the low beam on the headlight turns off after about 5 minutes of riding. If I switch to high beam it's fine. What's so odd is that once it's cooled the low beam works again. The signals and horn work fine as well as the starter, brake and tail lights.

Any thoughts and where I should begin checking?

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:52 am
by eliteguy50
Start by checking your wire harness.

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:17 am
by patthesoundguy
nunnsie wrote:Hi,

I just recently purchased this Aero and replaced the battery since the one it came with was toast. It starts and runs fine but I'm seeing two electrical issues. 1) the oil light never goes out despite having a full tank. 2) the low beam on the headlight turns off after about 5 minutes of riding. If I switch to high beam it's fine. What's so odd is that once it's cooled the low beam works again. The signals and horn work fine as well as the starter, brake and tail lights.

Any thoughts and where I should begin checking?
For the head light issue, I'd pull apart the high low switch, there could be arcing in there.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 7:11 pm
by nunnsie
Thank for the replies. I did remove the speedo to replace a few bulbs. Maybe I crossed my wires somewhere.

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 1:31 am
by nunnsie
Quick update: I tried using LED bulbs for the oil and high beam lights. Removing them and going with standard bulbs cleared up the headlight and oil light issues. Lesson learned. The fuel gauge is also not working. I took the sender unit from my gyro's tank to see if it would work and it did. I'll probably just replace the fuel sender but does anyone know if it's really serviceable? With the ignition on the needle moves below empty so I'm assuming there's an electrical short.

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:57 am
by patthesoundguy
The LED bulbs do not AC current. I think the headlight circuit is AC, not DC. That would explain the issue, good thing you replaced the LEDs with the orig incandescent bulbs or you would have been trouble shooting until the end of time. That was lucky :-D now we know LEDs won't work in those spot, thanks for sharing :-)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:43 pm
by mousewheels
nunnsie wrote:The fuel gauge is also not working. I took the sender unit from my gyro's tank to see if it would work and it did. I'll probably just replace the fuel sender but does anyone know if it's really serviceable?
The sender can be taken apart. The old senders are like the one below from a Gyro and can be inspected. It may function if cleaned if a replacement is not available.

Fuel Sender - Link, please click me

Re: '83 Aero 80 odd electrical issues

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:53 pm
by nunnsie
Thanks for the helpful link! I have the sender unit in an ultrasonic bath as I'm typing this. I'll let you know how it goes.