Brake Lights—don’t work, but tails do By mk (Read 362 times)

[mk]

2004 50cc Chinese Panterra scooter.   Tail lights come on with key.  Replaced the switch attached to the brake pedal, still nothing.  Both blinkers work too.  Wiring harness that supplies the whole rear light assembly has 5 wires.  Green/yellow—12.5 V,  Green—0 V,  Brown—pulses .5 V with both blinkers,  Blue—0V, Orange—0V.  Measured the voltages while pushing the brake pedal, and not pushing it.    New bulbs with dual elements....  My guess is that the green wire is for the brake lights.     Any suggestions?  

[cyborg]

Could be a grounding issue

[mk]

How to confirm it’s a grounding issue?? Also, is it possible a grounding issue like this could be causing the bike to run off the battery. I suspect I’m getting very little recharging from the stator. Been a slow project, so haven’t run it for long stretches to really determine if the battery dies b3cause running the engine drains it, or because getting it started often requires a fair amount of cranking. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[cyborg]

Regulator first then stator,, to check the rear ground just run a wire from a bolt to a known ground

[mk]

Sorry, not sure what you mean about how to check the rear ground. New regulator. Not sure how to check stator—found some instructions for it, but they talk3d about 5 wires off the stator, but I only have 4 wires.

[mk]

If I set a multimeter on AC volts, and only get about 6 V off the two wires in the plug coming off the Stator...whether it’s idling or revved, is it safe to say the stator is bad??

[cyborg]

Yep

[mk]

Got a new one ordered...arriving Tuesday. That may fix a different issue I’m having....

[mk]

Brake lights were my own ignorance. Got this scooter with no front brakes and a brake lever as the throttle. As I learned a little, I found the “safety” device that requires the brake lever to be pulled to start it up. I just ran a piece of wire to each prong in the plug, and presto, I could get it to crank. I never found a brake lever that both fit and had the switch wires in it, so I was planning on just leaving that loop of wire. It finally occurred to me that that loop of wire was also keeping the brake lights on the whole time. I feel dumb for not realizing it before now. I’m just gonna run the wires so that now they’re tied to the rear brake pedal. Put a new stator on last night, but I don’t think it’s charging anything, so need to some more investigating...

[cyborg]

Could be the regulator,,,and parts for scooters will most likely have everything you need

[mk]

Trying to test the charging system, using a few YouTube videos.... Fire it up, and have 20+ VAC into regulator on the white wire, but only like 10 V on the yellow wire, and while testing the yellow wire, the engine drug down and died twice. Coincidence?? It’s a new stator, but is it bad? After 2nd time, wouldn’t start again and battery died, so didn’t get chance to test the VDC out of the regulator yet.

[cyborg]

How's the battery?,,sometimes these bikes run funky when the battery is marginal