GL1500 Headlight keeps blowing fuse, SOLVED!!

Howdy y'all,

Like a number of other members, I had the troubling 'blown headlight fuse' issue, and just couldn't figure out what it was. I followed many of the suggestions on the board, and appreciated all the great help.

In my case, I finally tracked down the issue that was plaguing my bike, and thought I'd share with the community, as I'm sure I'm not the only one that has seen this.

Problem: Headlight will work fine for a while after the bike is started, then once I started to drive, it would blow a fuse, and I couldn't see any consistency.

Most suggested cleaning out the starter switch and even the lo/hi beam switch to make sure there was no 'gunk' shorting the circuit. I did all of that, but no go.

Finally, I started to trace out all the wires, and found a potential weak spot, which is where my problem was located.

If you follow the bundle of wires that comes from the left handlebar, it travels down to the frame and joins another bundle of wires just to the left of where the key is inserted. There, the factory attaches the bundle with a tie, but when you turn the front wheel to the right, the left fork will eventually 'hit' the bundle of wires before it turns all the way. I don't know if all GL1500's are this way, but that is why I would always turn my wheel to the left, and here the metal on metal 'clank' as the fork hit into the frame, but when I turned to the right, I would not be able to turn it all the way, and the 'clank' was stifled; because the fork was hitting the bundle of wires.

I started to pull the bundle apart, and found one lone wire that was worn with one lone strand that was poking out, and every time I would turn my wheel to the right, that lone strand of copper would hit the frame, and ground out the headlight, popping my fuse. A quick wrap to the wire, re-wrap of the bundle, and a re-route of where the bundle is fastened to the frame, and now my headlight has worked without issue for 3+ weeks.

As with every repair, each issue is slightly different so this may not fix your headlight issue, but this cable bundle being hit by the fork as the wheel turned was never discussed in threads that I saw, so I thought I'd share in hopes of sparing others the pain and time it took me to find it.

Happy riding!!