Dead short on rear side light...quick ideas please?

I have a dead short on the sidelight circuit, meaning I have NO rear light at all. (and no front either, but obviously that's less of an issue.)

the second fuse down is blowing as soon as the ignition goes on....

I've removed the rear cluster and unplugged the multiplug to no odds, but logically, as I've been mucking around with the front and the new fairing, that's where the problem will probably lie.

I've traced the wiring up front and can't see any problems though....nothing pinched, snipped or broken that I can see

Any ideas? Is there a 'normal' place where the sidelight circuit shorts out?

I have to fix this in the next few hours or I'll have to bodge a live feed to the rear so I have some form of rear illumination, just to get me home tonight.

Any chance that you've swapped live and earth somewhere along the way?

Also, take the bulbs out and try again - sometimes a blown bulb can throw a short.

Womble said:

Any chance that you've swapped live and earth somewhere along the way?

Also, take the bulbs out and try again - sometimes a blown bulb can throw a short.

Click to expand...

Nothing swapped......It was all working the other night and if I'd swapped anything, it would have shown up immediately.

Right now, the front bulb is out and the rear cluster multi plug is disconnected, so it's a wiring issue somewhere else

Has your bodged, sorry, I mean modified, fairing and headlamp arrangement kept the OE side/parking light?

It sounds like there's a trapped wire shorting to earth. Hopefully it will still be trapped and not have been dinged and still shorted, 'cos that makes the blighter easier to find.

Found it.

Where I welded the tiny wee tag back onto the ring in the front beam unit, there's a tiny (just about feel it with my fingertip inside the hole in the lamp glass after removing the H4 bulb) bit of crap that's JUST touching the metal bulb holder of the sidelight as it protrudes through

It's a major faff to take it all apart again, and it's going to be a real gynaecological job to get in there and break that short, but it's got to be done


There's a plastic ring that is fitted to the glass unit with three tabs....under that actually IN the glass, are two slots about 6mm wide x 1mm across that the two tabs that hold the 'cap' over the end of the H4 bulb go into.....it was one of those that had snapped which I welded .

(and I was so chuffed that I managed to weld the little fekker back on the other night )
Thanks chaps