Headlights won't work

[Keezo13]

Hey new to the forum and needing help with my fzs600 it's a 2001 model. Drove to work and everything was fine finished my shift and noticed my headlights won't come on. I've changed both bulbs and still nothing checked all the fuses and they're fine and there's power going to the headlight plugs. The only light that works is the lowest setting one not sure what it's called sorry. Had to drive home in the dark with hazards on as it was useless. Any ideas on what to check or fix to get the headlights working again. Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers

[celticbiker]

Sounds like a bad earth connection in a connector block somewhere.
Start by cleaning the contacts in the headlight plug.

[bandit]

Clean the contacts in the lefthand handle bar switch.

[Keezo13]

Sounds like a bad earth connection in a connector block somewhere.
Start by cleaning the contacts in the headlight plug.

will give that a try mate cheers

[Keezo13]

Clean the contacts in the lefthand handle bar switch.

will do cheers

[limax2]

Welcome to the site Keezo. If you have proper power to the connection in the headlight plugs (sockets) then it points towards a bad earth connection. However if you are measuring that power with a volt meter bear in mind you can get a 12volt reading even with a high resistance in the feed circuit, such as a poor contact in a switch or connector as others have suggested. i.e it can pass a few milliamperes to give a voltage reading but not enough amps to light the main bulbs. To check the earth connection before pulling switches apart you could try placing a bulb in the socket and run a separate wire from the bulb body to some bare metal on the frame and if it then lights up the problem is with the earth connection. Possible a Brocken earth wire.
Be interesting to know if the tail light was coming on, although I’m not sure what that would indicate without studying the wiring diagram. Likewise the instrument lights working or not might help to narrow the problem source down. There is always an answer to these things, just a matter of finding it!

[BBROWN1664]

Hey new to the forum and needing help with my fzs600 it's a 2001 model. Drove to work and everything was fine finished my shift and noticed my headlights won't come on. I've changed both bulbs and still nothing checked all the fuses and they're fine and there's power going to the headlight plugs. The only light that works is the lowest setting one not sure what it's called sorry. Had to drive home in the dark with hazards on as it was useless. Any ideas on what to check or fix to get the headlights working again. Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers

Where are you located? Do you have a multi-meter?

[His Dudeness]

I agree with Limax2. I think you've got voltage drop from unwanted resistance somewhere in the circuit. You have to do your voltage check when there is a load on the circuit. That means the circuit must be complete and there must be current flowing through it for your voltage measurement to be valid. So make sure the bulb is plugged into the connector, turn the ignition on, turn the high beam switch to on, connect the positive of the multimeter to the positive high beam connector, connect the negative multimeter to the negative side of the bulb. On a good circuit you should see 12V, on yours you will probably see a lot less than 12V. That shows there is an unwanted voltage drop somewhere in the circuit caused by unwanted resistance.

To find out if the voltage drop is on the positive side of the circuit, keep the positive lead of the multimeter on the positive side of the bulb and connect the negative of the multimeter to the positive of the battery. If the positive side of the circuit is good you should see near 0V. If you see a couple of volts, there's a problem on the positive side of the circuit. Next do the same test but on the negative side. Keep one lead of your multimeter on the negative side of the bulb and the other lead on the negative of the battery, if you see a couple of volts there's a problem is on the negative side.

The problem could be a chaffed wire, corroded wire, corroded connector, burnt wire or burnt connector something like that. If both high beam and low beam are effected the problem must be on a wire that is common to both circuit so that narrows it down. If you do the voltage drop test on both sides of the circuit that'll narrow it down more.