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1985 Honda Fourtrax 250 Electrical Issues

2164 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Okie
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Hi All!

This is my first post to the forum and it may be a bit of a tricky one. I have a 1985 Honda Fourtrax 250 that I have installed some new Lightplus LED Lights on. To begin with, before I had the LED lights on, the quad had a set of Rally Lights from the 80s on the front grill guard, one day the main spotlight started to flicker on and off. I didn't think much of it because I had the two rally lights that provided sufficient light. As I went on, the spotlight seemed to fix itself and stopped flickering. A couple months later, the spotlight would come on in low beam but would be super dim and when I switched it to high beam (which the rally lights were wired to) it would go completely out, but one of the Rally lights came on, the other did not light up at all. I figured maybe one of the Rally bulbs was burnt out causing something to short and the bulb in the spotlight was burnt out.

http://www.hondaatvforums.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=66953&stc=1&d=1487175648
These are what I ordered

I received the LightPlus headlights and installed them so they would run off the high beam switch. The worked great, but I still could not get the spotlight to work even with the new bulb. Occasionally if I would bend the spotlight wire a certain way, the spotlight would come on and work normally then stop. Ok, maybe it's the spotlight harness. I figured now was as good a time as any to replace the spotlight with an 6.6 45W LED light from Wish.com that fit in the old spotlight housing perfectly. I just installed that yesterday, following the instructions another forum member provided. When I hooked it up, the light wouldn't come on at all, but the LightPlus lights worked normally. I have no idea where to turn next, any suggestions?

Thanks,
Landon

BTW, here's the light I used from Wish.com
Penguin Emperor penguin Fashion accessory

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start with all your fuses, there is a couple right under the light , inside the cover on top of the fender.
Thanks! Tried that, I didn't find that any of the fuses were broken.:confused:
If you can try and hook the two pods to the wires that worked with only one pod. If they both light up you can go one of two ways. Just wire them both from the one wire or trace the other wires and try and find where it is broken, melt, pinched, ECT. I am willing to bet it is just a broken wire somewhere

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Your spotlight harness connector may simply have a loose connection.

If If If it has the same setup as the mid80's atv, connector is friction-fit into the weatherproof cover. Try pulling it loose with slight pulling. Here's a pic of the plug end

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You say you could bend the spotlight cable and it would work ok sometimes and it eventually quit. You got another light BULB and installed in the spotlight housing and it still won't work.
Appears you have a bad intermittent spotlight cable. This is common problem if it's the coiled type cable.


couple thoughts:
You might consider going to Wal-Mart or equal and getting a electrical tester, Digital multimeter (DMM) or Volt Ohmmeter (VOM) analog type and do some testing.
The electrical tester will cost you about $20. (at Wal-Mart)
Do not go to Harbor Freight for the cheapo $5 electrical tester, it even lies to you and is not safe. (not safe for the operator)

You might connect a test light bulb to the 12v source at the same pos and neg points that the spotlight connects and see if the test light will work ok.

Something like this $4 6/12v tester is handy sometimes.
ebay item 172101625474

also available from most any automotive store or maybe wal mart.
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