Electrics acing funny, first gear shows as neutral

[BananaLover]

There are 4 lights on my speedometer: engine warning, neutral, indictor and high beam.

Highbeam works as intended, the engine warning light doesn't come on, neutral light comes on in first gear, but not always, and indicator light doesn't come on, but neither do indicators themselves.

What happened was I attached temporary indicator lights but they weren't properly sealed. At some point front right indicator stopped working (later found out the bulb has come out of the socket).
I washed my bike a few days later and suspect water could have easily entered the indicators. And maybe 5 minutes later I had pulled over, entered neutral, at which point neutral light started dimming and disappeared entirely, which I thought meant my battery was low, but it wasn't. And now I have the issue described above. I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened after me washing my bike, should have known better.

What now? I've searched for the flasher relay before but I can't find it (not hwere manual says it is), and the cables are wrapped so it's hard tracing it. Are there some tests I can make without knowing where it is to see if I need a new one?

yamaha dragstar xvs650
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YAMAHA XVS650 DRAGSTAR 1999

[Nobby the Bastard]

What was wrong with the original indicators?
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[BananaLover]

[Nobby the Bastard]

First off disconnect the indicators. Does everything else work as it should?
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[BananaLover]

If I disconnect them everything satays the same
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YAMAHA XVS650 DRAGSTAR 1999

[Nobby the Bastard]

[Easy-X]

Probably an earthing issue somewhere. Some time with a wiring diagram and a multimeter would probably help.
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[BananaLover]

[Polarbear]

[MCN]

WD-40 the fcuk out of all the wiring harness/s to drive out any moisture.
Until it's dripping off.

The clue is in the name: WD-40 (Water Displacing No. 40)

You're welcome.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[Teflon-Mike]

Neutral warning lamps usually switch on the earth side.
The 'switch' tends to be a brass tang on the gear selector drum inside the engine that passes current through a brass contact to the engine cases, that should be earthed when the drum is orientated in the 'n' pos.
If the 'n' lamp comes on, or flickers when not in 'n', its a good hint that the engine oil needs changing, and that current is finding path through carbon crap, soot, in the oil from the contact on the selector drum to the earthed engine case.
You may need nowt more than an oil change to remedy that one.
Indies?
You have muggered with for LED's.
On which point one has to ask, WHY bludi-ballest resistors?
If flash rate changes with a low amp LED, that means that the flasher is an old fashioned electro mechanical one, and the flash rate is timed by balkencing the current draw through the indie lamps to the spring rate in the 'relay' that chops the suply.
Using Ballast resistolrs to correct the flash rate, to my mind rather defeats most of the pointy of using low wattage LED's... the ballast resistors suck the extra watts that the LED's dont, so you get no amp saving, and just a usually cheap low quality LED to replace a generally pretty OK tungsten one....
Propper solution IF you are going to use LED indies is to also change the flasher to a chrystal timed electronic one that flashes at fixed rate independent of the load on it.
I've converted a few older Electro-Mech flashers to Electronic ones, and they usually have a higher max current rating than electro-mech's and in every case I've experienced been a lot cheaper, as in maybe £2-£ instead of 6-16!
And no need to introduce potential weak points in the system splicing in four extra connectors to incorporate ballast resistors, or more in the ballasts themselves!
Other thing here is that if you only have a single 'tell-tale' lamp in the dash for the indies, that is often connected in via a two-way bridge. Basically +ve volts from both left and right indy circuits go to the tell-tale bulb, and the -ve side finds its way to earth through the indy on the 'off' side.
If using LED indies this is probably a niggle you would have to sort anyway, and begs either doubling up the tell-tale with twin, component' LED's one for each side, or making up a clever bridge circuit with a couple of diodes.
The long therm proper solution here would be (for me) to get the LED indies sorted properly first, which would mean either doubling up the tell tale or dioding, and using an electronic flasher and doing away with the need for bludy ballasts... and in doing 'that' probably eliminating possible shorts from wet electrics along the way.

But, I think that the imperative here, is that imminent MOT...

So how would you preffer to wast your time in 'faff'... putting it all back to standard like the books shows and chasing down earth and connector issues, or trying to bodge it with wotchu got? And which wouyld take more faff? Your call, really... but advise of ages, if you gonna do a job, do it proppa and just do it once.... as said, personally I'd back up and do the LED concersion 'pukka', or I'd go back to absolute standard, 'pukka' and this is elek-tricks, which will always find a way to get murphey his cut, and the more so the more short cuts you try take, so may as well bit a bullet and do the job, one way or the other, properly and be damned.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[BananaLover]

It was a fuse. Feel dumb having not checked, the neutral light would still come on just not when it was needed, so it didn't cross my mind that a fuse blew. Probably when I washed my bike.

Also, I put the resistors in and it works great.

Thanks for having a look at the thread, just making sure if someone googles this they check the fuse box first.
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YAMAHA XVS650 DRAGSTAR 1999