Given the wealth of knowledge on here this seems like a first place to ask this one! 🙂

Riding home tonight I turned on the indicator and all the dashboard electrics blinked off. On turning the indicator off, it all comes back to life again and fires up. When I got home I gave it another quick test, I can hear a buzzing sound when the indicator is turned on. It also doesn’t matter which indicator I put on, both do the same.

My guess is the indicator relay is fried? Potentially a short somewhere? It’s been out in the rain all day.

The bike’s a Varadero 125.

Cheers!

My old bike did that after much searching it was a dodgy earth lead

Ah cheers, I’ll have a look into it 🙂

As above – Check relay and earth connection to the frame.
If neither of them, maybe inside the switch is damp?

Also have a quick look for places where the cables run over the frame, especially around the headstock- I don’t know the Varadero but my old Yam 125 was pretty bad for chafing, the loom wasn’t very well placed

Starting to think it’s a wiring issue. I went out and bought another relay to try, I was really sold on it being the relay due to it buzzing every time I tried to indicate. In retrospect I think that was just it failing to trigger, the new relay has a loud click but the electrics still die.

The ground lead looks to be fine, not the greatest test I know, contacts on both ends are OK.

I’ve tried changing the fuse, this fuse also covers horn and headlights both of which are fine. The fuse didn’t fix it, no change here.

I’ve pulled the switch apart, it’s a bit stiff but looks fairly safe inside, no corrosion, lots of grease. It’s a bit stiff but then it’s done 30,000 odd which isn’t too bad for a 125 🙂

So I’m left thinking it’s a wiring issue somewhere, which is a massive pain in the arse as it doesn’t narrow it down much. Might just crack and take it to the bike shop 🙁 I do have a multimeter somewhere, really not something I’m hugely skilled with though to be honest 🙂

Yeah, headstock wiring chafing is also a good call. Been an issue on some bikes I’ve owned.

If you need to pull the loom out and inspect it….. schedule a fair whack of time!

Bolts near the loom too, a mate of mine had constant electrical issues, it turned out he’d replaced a fairing bolt and the new one was about 5mm too long and had cored right into a wire.

Checking the whole loom is hard so you want to approach it from the point of view of where it’s more likely to have damage- bolts, frame, movement, connectors. Sometimes it’s useful to bridge out sections- so connect a relay directly to the battery- but you’ve got to be careful with that.

But electrics are a pain in the arris and I’d have no shame at all giving it to a pro, personally!

I think I will to be honest 🙂 I really can’t be bothered with going that far! We don’t have a garage so it’s all on our driveway. Fortunately the nature of the problem means I can zoom it down to the garage anyway there’s only 1 corner on the entire route and it’s a left hand turn!

Cheers for the tips all, I certainly learned a bit poking around the fuse box and swapping the relay 🙂