Bill ordering a new hair dryer for Barbara; even he couldn't fix the old one this time

My GL1800′s  cruise control stopped setting.

The problem persisted and I pursued several routes trying to solve it.  I checked the micro switches and all associated connectors/wiring but it still persisted.

The strange thing was when I tested the cruise control with the bike on the centre stand in my garage it would set normally every time – frustrating or what?

When I ride I always have the headlights on and when I put the bike away I always turn off the lights.  Purely by chance on one occasion I rode into my garage and left the lights on and the bike running.  Still frustrated that the cruise control wasn’t working I decided to attack it again.  Lo and behold it wouldn’t engage with the bike on the centre stand as it had on previous occasions in the garage.  I then noticed the lights were on so I switched them off, tried the cruise control again and it engaged.

The clue was in the modifications to the rear lights

Lights on no cruise control, lights off no problem.  I confirmed that the cruise control would work on the road as long as I had my lights switched off  so now I had a definite fault finding route to follow. It had to be something to do with the lights.

About 18 months ago I had replaced all my upper and lower rear stop and tail light bulbs with red LED equivalents.  This was done along with other lighting additions.  The uppers were replaced with capless LEDs the lowers with bayonet type LEDs, the sort which are sold to replace conventional car light bulbs.  This was because my UK-spec bike didn’t originally have lower stop/tail lights, so I had conventional bulb holders for stop/tail lights to the saddlebag lighting units to light them up too, as on US-spec bikes.)

LED replacements for conventional bulbs

The lowers presented a problem in that I had to swap the stop light wire over with the tail light to make them work correctly, the uppers worked without altering the wiring.

Red LED untis are bright enough

Although I had by now worked out that the cruise  control problem had something to do with the lights,  at this time I made no connection with the LEDs because it was so long ago that I had fitted them, I had mentioned the problem to several wingers and tried all the suggestions put forward to resolve the problem to no avail.

Capless LEDs are available to fit standard Honda light holders

One day whilst talking to Barry Walton at Appys he asked if my stop lights were working OK.  Of course they were – but his question reminded me of what I had done 18 months earlier to my rear lights, could that be the cause of the problem ?

Being aware that the cruise control uses earth switching for cancelling the engagement and also being aware of the lower resistance of LEDs relative to tungsten, I decided to removed all the LEDs and change the wiring back to what it was, to see if it made a difference.  So I fitted standard tungsten bulbs in place of the LEDs and swapped the wiring back over and hey presto, the cruise control worked perfectly again.

Needs an oven bake to get best results

I am still not sure whether it was the the LEDs causing the problem or the changeover of the wires to which I had resorted but I am not really bothered which it was because it’s now working properly.

Since I had replaced my bikes original red rear lenses with clear ones, I had to use red-coloured bulbs to replace the LED units, which had been red ones.  I did this by painting standard bulbs with red glass paint.  Using red bulbs works well with the clear lenses but there are a couple of tips I can pass on about getting the red paint to stick.

Firstly cleaning the bulbs carefully is essential and although I tried using brake cleaning fluid to de-grease them this didn’t work well enough and the paint bubbled up.  I then resorted to rubbing the glass thoroughly with Scotchbright cloth before painting and this did work.

The glass paint I used also specified that the bulbs had to be baked dry in an oven to get the paint to cure and first time around I didn’t bother doing this, thinking that the bulb heating up in use would be good enough.  It wasn’t and baking them off properly in an oven as per instructions works much better.  Two coats are necessary to get a decent red colour too, one coat isn’t enough.

Where did I get the red glass paint?  Can’t remember I’m afraid.  Probably off the internet.  Hobby Craft sell glass paint and that might work well enough.