bulbs in brakelight

[thrasherg]

Gentlemen, as previously mentioned I am fixing a 1200 SEI 1986 goldwing for a friend. I am trying to sort out the electrics and have a simple question!!

Inside each brake light there are 2 bulbs, one is a single filament bulb and the other is a twin filament brake light bulb. On this bike the twin filament bulb has the low wattage filament light up when the lights are turned on and the second filament lights up when the brakes are applied (this all seems completely normal to me), I have not found any way to make the second bulb (single filament low power bulb) light up. I am wondering what is the reason/function of the second bulb? Maybe the second bulb should just come on with the headlights, but it is using a different wiring circuit to the low power bulb on the twin filament bulb so that seems unlikely as Honda would have just wired the 2 bulbs in parallel.
Can someone please tell me what the function of this second bulb is and when it should come on? I will look in the manual, but thought I would also ask here.

Regards Gary

[oldishwinger]

I'm not very familiar with the sei but I thought I would take a guess, they may be a park light have you tried turning the key to park?

[thrasherg]

Thanks for the suggestion, they don’t come on with the park position, but I forgot to mention this wing has been triked, so the rear lower lights are part of the trike kit, not from a goldwing, so I will have to trace the wiring and work out what they are connected to.

Thanks Gary

[Rednaxs60]

Will look at my '85 LTD for you.

[WingAdmin]

Turn signal, perhaps?

[thrasherg]

Nice idea wingman, but the indicator flashes the high power filament in the dual filament bulb!! It’s been too cold to go work on the bike so I still haven’t had a chance to follow the wiring. A park light seems the most likely, but then why not use the low power filament in the dual filament bulb, would be much easier than adding a second bulb and all the wiring!!
I will get to the bottom of it.

Gary

[wiretician]

Being the electrical kind of guy and troubleshooter that I am, I looked at the SEi wiring diagram for the original bike. WingAdmin is probably right. The original wiring had four brake/running lights. Running light is what you referred to as low wattage filament (7 watt), and high power would be the brake (23 watt). Which are all wired common to each other, so all four are doing the same thing. And the single filament bulb is supposed to be the turn signal, of course left and right and separate form the bake circuit. I'm going to venture a guess, and someone else wired the trike conversion.?? Probably why the turn signal is in the brake bulb, instead of the signal bulb. If you're patient and take your time, trace the wires and separate the signal from the brake bulb which is crossed up.
Hope that helped.