Gauge Lights Out, everyting else works.

All my gauge lights went out on my 79 Kz1000ltd, and of course I only notice them at night when I have a long 2 hour bike ride home. I'm wondering if this is caused by the vibrations - I notice my gauges seem a little loose and seem to shake a little too much...I've tighened all the bolts around there but doesn't seem to help reduce the shaking. Is it natural for my dash to shake or should they be steady? Any how, do I need to open my gauges up(wouldn't know how to) to change the bulbs, or could it be something else. Everything else on the dash works great...just no lights.

Post edited by: sakiguy, at: 2005/12/06 20:12

sakiguy wrote:

All my gauge lights went out on my 79 Kz1000ltd, and of course I only notice them at night when I have a long 2 hour bike ride home. I'm wondering if this is caused by the vibrations - I notice my gauges seem a little loose and seem to shake a little too much...I've tighened all the bolts around there but doesn't seem to help reduce the shaking. Is it natural for my dash to shake or should they be steady? Any how, do I need to open my gauges up(wouldn't know how to) to change the bulbs, or could it be something else. Everything else on the dash works great...just no lights.<br><br>Post edited by: sakiguy, at: 2005/12/06 20:12

I have the exact same problem. I checked the bulbs a while back by swapping them to the neutral indicator, and they are fine.

Now that the bike is "winterized", I spent a bit of time chasing and labling wires yesterday, now I have to put my battery back in to see where the problem is..

My wiring diagram seems to indicate that the problem must be right up under the gauges, after the 9-pin connector - I have power up to there, because the same line seems to feed other things...

Don't neglect the ground connection. These lights are isolated from the frame by rubber gromets. To get around the gromets there are seperate ground wires that ground the instruments. Often times these wires, hot and ground, get frayed from the flexing caused by turning the front end. I suggest you look at the wires right near the first tie off of the harness for the instrument cluster.
Good luck.
Bill
KZCSI

Also there are wire splices built into the wire looms that split off the 12v to power different lights. Very common for these wire splices to break one wire off of them in the wire harnesses so instead of a "T" you have an "I", one leg broken off losing voltage. Possibly the grounds have these splices in the loom also although I've never had trouble with them. Always a loss of 12v for me. You have two choices if this is the case. You can rip the plastic shrouding off your wiring until you find where the wire break is, or simply run a separate wire from a convenient working bulb to your non-working ones, which is the easy way out.

The guages are rubber mounted, as mentioned above, so they do have some shake to them.

It's not difficult to get at the bulbs and wiring. The backside of the guages have one or two screws, depending on your model, which come off to expose the backside of the Guages. The center consol will have two or three screws on the backside, again to allow you access to the wiring and bulbs.

I had the same problem with my Instrument lights, No workie. My problem showed up once I openned the guages. One of the bulb sockets had broken right off the wires. There was no wire out of the socket to allow me to reattach, but luckily I had a spare wire harness to swap in.

I had the same problem with my B1. I found MEGA corrosion and a busted wire on one of the splices inside the headlight housing.

sakiguy, Suggest you put your bike year/model in your signature. I know some about some models but little about others and it is hard to give specific advice on models you know nothing about. As far as gauge shake goes, I suggest if you look under your gauges at the "rubber", it is as hard as a rock and cracked and some of it may be missing. I remove all this rubber on my bikes and use strip insulation that has a stickey back to replace it. The gauges stop bouncing once they have some cushioning.

As far as the lights not working, each light is on a different circuit I think so you do well to check the ground. I could be wrong but I think this is true.

Got behind the gauges and removed the bulb sockets and swapped them with the working neutral bulb. Bad bulb would not light in the neutral socket, good bulb lit up in both gauge light sockets. Thankfully, it was just a couple of bad bulbs. First time I've changed them out since I had the bike, so I wonder how long these things last? I mean come on, this bike is only 26 years old, give me a break! I wonder if they sell aftermarket led guages for these KZs. I installed some LED gauges on my mustang 5.0 recently. They are a cool blue color and look sweet at night. Wish they had something similar for my kz.