Tail Running Light

[e3stivers]

For some reason my my tail running light is not working. I know its the brown wire to the break lights, but i have check all the connections and all is good. I have done everything i know to correct the issue but i cant find the problem. All the other lights work fine on the bike. Any suggestions? I really need to get this fixed because it illegal not to have it here. Thanks in advance...

[saxman]

grab a multimeter, verify if you're getting power to the bulb socket. If not, see if the wires leading to the socket are getting power. May be a bad connection, etc.

[DoD#i]

Since you have not gone into detail, I'll start with the "stupid" questions...

Brake light works, or not?

Bulbs work on both filaments? These are two-filament bulbs, the brake filament can be fine and the running filament can be broken.

Installed correctly? One "side pin" is higher than the other - bulb won't go in correctly if it's 180 degrees out of whack with the low pin on the high pin side. Bulb should push in, then turn to lock into position. If it won't turn, it's probably backwards.

Then go back to the sticking a multimeter in there to see if you have power to the pins. One should always (when the bike is on) have power, the other should have power when the brake is on. Then you need to check that the ground is good - especially if the bulbs are good, in correctly, and neither light works, but you have power to the pins (when grounding the meter to the bike)

Ground is black with white, running lights is brown, brake is white with black. So "what you know" about the brake light wiring appears to be wrong, for one thing.

[e3stivers]

the break light works fine. Dont know why the heck i didnt use the multimeter before guess im that dumb, but i checked each wire independently the brown wire is the only one without power. Does this mean i need to start ripping through the wiring harness to track down the problem, or does anyone know a quick trick. I was thinking i could avoid doing that by wiring the brown wire directly to the battery and i would have wire a switch just for the running light. I would really hate to do that, but any thoughts? 

[adidasguy]

The running light just needs 12v when the bike is on. Trace the wire as far as you can. Maybe you'll find a break.
Use the wiring diagram and look the other places that wire goes.
Otherwise, you can use anything that gets power when the bike is on. The wiring diagram will show you all the places you can tap 12v from.

[DoD#i]

OK. The questions are "stupid", not stupid, becasue we simply need to establish (lacking  bike in front of us) where things really are at. No power on brown wire is a much better place to be. Go into the headlight (well, on an E model in the headlight shell - wherever the F model hides all the stuff in the headlight on the E-model, I don't know, but follow the wires up there) and find the Red/orange/grey/brown connector - that's the ignition switch, and it's where the brown wire should be getting power from.

Actually, before that, does your speedometer/tach light up? That's the same place (grey wire) that feeds power to the brown wire, so if yes, we look here, and if no, we look there...

Anyway, if your speedo/tach do light up (and even if they don't, just check anyway), check the resistance through the ignition switch (unplug the connector and check resistance/continuity) between the grey and brown wires with the switch on. While you are at it you can try connecting the red wire on the bike to the brown wire on the bike and see if you get tail-light.

Report back and we'll pick it apart further.