Hello and....Help with the hazard lights.

[mick stobbs]

First of all,Hello everyone,
I've been mooching round on this forum for a few weeks now and found it a great source of info for me trike project so far.
I bought a half finished Yamaha xj900diversion trike a while back and am almost finished (i hope) the dreaded wiring stage.
But,i would really appreciate some info and experience with a fault with the hazard lights which has got me stumped.
I've wired the rear,brake,and indicator lights on the mudguards into the existing bike wiring,but,the hazards are behaving as follows;
the hazards won't work with the ignition off(so i'm assuming theres a problem with the permenant live into the switch.)
with the ignition on the hazards will work sometimes(so can i assume the flasher relay is ok?)
however,sometimes the hazards won't work even .with the ignition on but, if i press the switch in very slowly then they will start working and will be ok after that.
Could the flasher unit be causing the faults i describe or is the standard flasher unit on the donor bike not up to the job?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated but please be gentle cos i'm no auto leccy,actually i'm a fitter and turner.
Best regards,
Mick.

[terry t]

Hi Mick welcome to the monkey house. If they were ok before you wired the indicator and brake lights on the mudguard. it may be a bad earth as for pressing the switch in slowly it may be the switch
ps I am a fitter and turner as well. kitchen fitter by trade and surname is turner . what part of the uk you in

[fifer]

Hi Mick .
Are you using a separate car type rocker hazard switch .
If so , the internals are sometimes prone to sticking and often only need a good wiggling back and forth with a wee bit help from some electrical cleaner .
A standard flasher unit is rated at 2 x 21 watt as it only operates the front and rear bulbs on one side only .
You also need a separate hazard unit which is rated at 4 x 21 watt as it is has to operate four 21 watt bulbs .
.

[mick stobbs]

Cheers for the replys gents,
Terry,yeah they were ok before wiring i'll check the earths tonight and i'm gonna strip the switch and have look at the contacts after that.
fifer,your info about the flasher unit rating is exactly the sort of thing i needed to find out,i'll get one asap.
By the way,I'm, in the North East near Durham.
Much appreciated,
Mick.

[Olds]

Usually find it's better to fit an electronic timed flasher unit that is not load dependant. This way if one bulb blows the rest still work and if you add a trailer, extra indicators or repeater lights it will cope with these as well.

[mick stobbs]

Right,just in from the garage.
Before doing anything else i took the bulbs out of the mudguard lights and all back to normal when i pressed the hazard switch,so,i checked the earths and all ok so I reckon the flasher unit needs changing for the one fifer suggested.
Olds,i did'nt know an electronic timed unit was available but i'll have a look on flea bay n see if i can get hold of one.
I was told today of a lad at work who used to have a 900 Diversion that the hazards only worked with the ignition on,does this sound correct?
So i'm looking for a permanent live on the way up to the ignition so i can splice the switched live to the hazard switch into it,unfortunatly the only bit of the harness i can see comes round the side of the headset and dissapears under the tank.
Any ideas for this would be appreciated bfore i take the tank off for access.
Cheers,
Mick.

[mick stobbs]

Just a quick shout to say i now have working hazards,uprated flasher relay,one dodgy earth,and a permanent live feed and all is well
Thanks for all the advice.
My next job is trying to work out where to mount the handbrake,because it's basically a bog standard XJ900 Diversion with a standard exhaust,the only place i can see the handbrake fitting is on the mudguard bracket(soz don't know how to do pictures).
I would appreciate any thoughts/ideas/piccys on any other place to mount it cos its gonna have to be on quite a long mounting plate.....
Cheers,
Mick.

[Olds]

Glad to hear you got the hazards sorted. As for the handbrake, perhaps you could bracket from the pillion foot peg mount bolts. Don't think mounting on the mudguard brackets, as it would be bouncing up and down.

[mick stobbs]

Ay, i'd thought about using the pillion foot mounts but hav'nt quite worked out how its gonna work.
I'll be doin some work on it this afternoon so i'll update on any progress..
cheers,
Mick.

[scannerzer]

a friend of mine had a xj900 triked and his hand brake sat on the trailing arm that held his axle pointing out towards the left rear wheel

[mick stobbs]

You know what,i'd never thought of mounting it to point towards the wheel.
Right, back down the garage for a look....
Cheers,
Mick.

[Manky Monkey]

I think the regs say it has to be operable from the normal seating position, so make sure you can get enough leverage on it to fully pull it on from that angle.

[BikerGran]

I just went out to the garage and took some poics of mine but as usual the forum tells me they're too big, after I carefully resized them.

[Manky Monkey]

We just do it to annoy you now Bobbi. 

[BikerGran]

Can I email them to you to see if you can post them?  I really don't understand it!