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speedometer light will not shut off

brmealja

New Member
After riding my bike tonight I pulled it in the garage hit the kill switch pulled the key out and noticed that the speedometer light was still on. I can not get it to shut off so the pull the the battery cable off so it will not kill the battery. Does anyone know what the problem could be?
 
Welcome Brmealja to HDTimeline and hope you are enjoying your visit here. There will be other posters shortly, but I would need more info before I would hazard a "guess" but I will give it a shot, once we get a little background.

1) Did you do some recent "mods" to your bike related to electrical "accessories"? A key here is if you added something or had the handlebar/controls reworked,

2) Did you have some seemingly unrelated "bling" or accesory "wired in" to the harness that required you to have battery, TSSM (Turn Signal Security Module) or other service done?

3) Did you wash or clean anything with running water in the headlight nacelle, or near any of the electricals above or near the side covers recently?

Please advise and we will get back to you shortly. BTW good catch that you saw the instrument panel lit...most riders would not notice it during daytime hours and by luck you saw it in the "darkened" garage.
 
I did just recently have the dealer put a new bulb in for the neutral light. All my signal lights fall out of the sockets after a few rides. As far as water goes it did get caught out in the rain a few days ago.
 
My first inclination would be a pinched wire in the instrument cluster, probably done when the dealer put in the new bulb. Try not to disturb anything while trying to troubleshoot the problem...and know if you do this with the battery enabled, you are only looking for the "sneak" leakage path that is keeping the light lit...no need to trun on the ignition if it was glowing with everything off...be careful you are working with live low voltage, but high current and could fry sensitive/read expensive electronics.
Try pulling the fuses, lamps first at the fuse box, if it shuts off you are on the right circuit, otherwise continue. Once you have found the source, you will have to work your way towards the instrument light. Remember, most modern electronics run off 5 Volts which is reduced via a DC-DC converter 12-15VDC to 5VDC module which could be fried if you cross wires probing around.

As far as the light falling out of the sockets, you need to very gingerly tension each of the contacts, cleaning them with Brakleen (nonchlorinated), wipe or blow dry and use dielectric grease in the connectors and all contacts. If you have a service manual it will help...here is a short cut for 2005 Sporty...

http://www.hdtimeline.com/general_tips/11012-sportster_service_manual_2005_a.html
 
If you have a shop manual (HD type), find your wiring diagram for the bulb, take a volt meter and start tracing back to the switch till you fid out where the voltage is coming from.
 
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