Hello all and good day/evening to you. I figure I would make a post here as I am honestly completely baffled as to what is going with my 2001 f4i. When I had gotten the bike i'd say a couple months ago, the turn signal fuse/brake illuminating/horn fuse was burned out. (second one down in the fuse box) On my way to work yesterday I realized that my turn signals would not come on, my horn wasn't working and the rear brake light wasn't coming on. Checking the fuse today, I saw that yup it was out again and put in a new 10 amp fuse. I checked everything in the driveway and all seemed to be fine.
On my way to Walmart, I noticed that the turn signal light indicator (yellow lights on the instrument panel) were super dim when flashing. Sometimes they would't light up at all. This was when I was driving at speed. However whenever I came to a full stop, everything seemed to work fine. So long story short, it seems like when I am going 30mph or faster, they don't want to work....yet when I am going slower, they seem to work just fine.....I am totally confused as to what this could be....this is currently my ONLY mode of transportation so this really really sucks.....thank god it actually runs ok. I could really use some help from you all if you have any ideas on what this could be. Thanks so much!

Best Regards.

 

did you modify your blinkers or headlight in anyway? like added led signals and resistors?

 

Question is, why your fuse blew out in the first place? Seem like when you are going faster....more voltage is needed to spark the plugs...and it's drawing from a short.

Check electrical..R/R/Voltage regulator....hope other will jump in with similar experience , it sounds electrical

 

Couldn't tell ya how happy I was to see some responses hehe Well to answer mnguyen, yes I did modify the rear blinkers. I did put in some led lights for the rear blinkers however when I had gotten the bike someone had also put front led blinkers as well. After I replaced the fuse and put in the rear led blinkers, everything has worked just fine until I noticed this bizarre happening today. When you mention resistors, I can't exactly recall what you are referring to.

In response to estateforlife, when you say to check R/R what is that and where is it located? Ahh and the voltage regulator. I guess that could be a possibility as well. If I am not mistaken, they have a tendency to go bad on these f4i? I'll have to see what the manual says in order to be able to check it. Yea i'm really confused as well. I was thinking could it be an actual turn signal relay component that might need replacing as well? It just scares me because when the rear brake light is triggered to get brighter, that also is tied with the same thing as the turn signals etc....so i wonder if that isn;t illuminating brighter as well when this is happening......

 

So it's official with this issue I have been having that it only happens when I am driving. Before I had said it seems like it happens at 30 mph or over. It just depends it seems. Today it worked fine until at a standstill. I kept testing the turn signals and all worked fine until I had hit about 40 mph. Then once again the turn signal lights indicators on the instrument panel started flashing really slow and dim then stopped coming on all together. Once I came to a stop I had to engage the turn signal button on and off a couple times before it started working again......=( To be totally honest, when it comes to electronics, I am completely lost....I have no clue how to troubleshoot anything electronic and feel VERY uncomfortable trying to do so...=/ I'm almost wondering if I should just purchase a new R/R also called voltage regulator and see if that helps? I have heard sometimes those do go out on these bikes? Kind of sucks since it's around 130 dollars for a new one....>.< if that doesn't fix it, I guess I may have to just take it to a shop and get rapped on price....=/.....just not sure what to do...it's my only mode of transportation at the moment.

 

Did you install a led ready flash relay?

 

Hello again and pardon my really late reply. Work has just been super crazy lately....>.< A ready flash relay? No I haven't. I had always heard that if one doesn't install a relay, that the lights will simply flash fast and installing one will make it blink slower. I didn't know that one was needed to avoid any problems? I am almost wondering if I should just try to replace the turn signal switch inside the housing on the left handle bar? I will try to look at a fiche for it and see what is needed. I would imagine that it couldn't be that expensive? It's just really really strange that the lights seem to work when the bike is going slow vs faster........Do you really think not having a relay could cause these kind of weird problems?

 

relays are around $12-$25 depending on where you buy them. i ran my f4 since i bought it with a fast flash untill i got my new led tails with built in signals and had no problems. HOWEVER, i did have a similar problem as you for a while. turned out to be a bad connection in the front signals. when sitting it would be fine, but when i took off, the wind would move the wires and cause them to short out. i just redid all the connections in the front signals since i have flush mount signals and the previous owner did a crappy wiring job, and i havent had the problem since then! another thing to check out would be if you have led licence plate bolts hooked up in the rear, the coating on one of the wires could be stripped where the wire comes out of the bolt. that seems to be common as many people spin the bolt into place instead of spinning the nut into place on the back side, causing the wires coating to split open. alot of wind travels back there also.

 

the problem might be that the led blinkers in the front were modified in a shltty way where they are drawing too much power and blowing out your fuse. I hear that the F4i has day-running lights, and if you combo that with the led blinkers + resistor mod, then you will blow your fuse.

when you install LED blinkers in the front, they won't blink right. Because the LED lights run on low voltage, which do not draw enough power to activate the flasher unit. There are two ways people resolve the weird blinking issue (sometimes the blinker wont even blink). 1) The good way, where you replace your oem flasher unit with electronic flasher (sometimes called an LED flasher). 2) The shlt way: add resistors to draw more power.

Solution #2 is an oxymoron. The advantage of LED lights over stock is that they require low power consumption. You install LED lights to save on electricity. However, by adding resistors, you draw more power to the LED lights, and thus, defeat the purpose. This solution is a quick fix, and the danger is that if you do not use the right resistors, or combo them with another lighting system, then you will be drawing more power than what the electronics are design for. These are huge hi-amp/voltage resistors, and they should be easy to spot. They also run really hot. So if you dont see them, then you should be able to feel for them.

So if I were you, I would re-evaluate your lighting/blinker setup. Otherwise, you have an electrical short somewhere.

 

Hello again all. Well my reply to this thread is really quite late....>.< Hehe
I really attribute that to work just being really crazy lately. I guess that's what happens when on gets into management hehe.

Anyways, I wanted to say thank you for everyone that had contributed to the problem I was posting up. I really appreciate it. However I must say that jurgs2007 hit the nail on the head! Hehe it turned out that the previous owner had infact done a crap job wiring the front led lights in and that at speed I guess the wind was moving things around causing a fuse to short out. A few moments of crimping the wires to some male to female connectors and we are golden. So hopefully this can be of some help to others. Now it just seems that the wiring for the hid's the previous owner put in there needs to be dealt with however, the ballasts have rust on them etc and look pretty old. No worries I have a dual ddm 35w 6000k kit on the way Anyways thanks again for the post jurgs2007! and others.