Neutral Bulb

[Jose Mendez]

Hello Everyone.

My Neutral Bulb my have gone dead on my 2003 EV 1100 California. Is it possible to access the bulb for the dash?

Removing 3 allen screws is a lot easier than taking my air shield off.

[guzzisteve]

More to it than that. Disconnect speedo, disconnect from to triple tree, flip over, then the 3 screws. I would take screen off too to have room to work.
Have fun.

[moto]

Before following Steve's usually excellent advice I would try to see whether the neutral indicator switch is working properly and the wire is in place. It is probably a grounding switch. (Seems easier.)

[guzzisteve]

It's not the 3 in front but the 3 in back come out, bulb & wiring are under the back not front. Moto got a good point maybe wire off down by your ankle.

[normzone]

Also, be sure to verify that your bike is truly in neutral. Don't ask me how I know this, please.

[Wayne Orwig]

It is very easily the switch. I had that style switch fail on my 2004 EV.

[Jose Mendez]

I figured such.

I had just replaced the Speedo and RPM original bulbs, which we all know it's a chore trying to keep that little bulb from disconnecting. The neutral bulb failed 3 days later.

I guess I should replace all the bulbs while I am at it.

Will check the neutral indicator switch first, thanks for this advice.

Thanks to all. 

[PJPR01]

If you're planning to change the dash light bulbs, you can swap them all for LED's...except the blinker/indicator one which only works with non LED's.

Much brighter...many of on the V11 Lemans variants (Scura, LeMans, Greenie etc.) side with the same display have done the swap to LED's.

 

[StuCorpe]

I replaced the turn signal with led but had to do some work to do it.  Disconnected the original and added 2 led's, one for right and one for left.  Left the original lamp there with nothing hooked to it.  Had to replace the flasher also as I had put in all LED lamps.  This is an 03 EV.

[Kiwi_Roy]

I replaced the turn signal with led but had to do some work to do it.  Disconnected the original and added 2 led's, one for right and one for left.  Left the original lamp there with nothing hooked to it.  Had to replace the flasher also as I had put in all LED lamps.  This is an 03 EV.

Instead of adding two new LEDs you could have used a pair of diodes one from left blinkers one from right going to aa single bulb
Im a big fan of LEDs, if you match the LED colour to the basel colour they are much brighter
These are ny favourite lamp.
They aren't polarity sensitive and plenty bright
https://www.superbrightleds.com/194-led-bulb-1-led-miniature-wedge-base
I have installed this on several Guzzi's, I don't use lamp holders just glue them into the dash with JBWeld and solder the wires directly to the lamp.
Use the ones with 90 degree beam

[Jose Mendez]

Great info on LEDs, Roy, StuCorpe and PGPR01.  The neutral bulb on my 2003 was not making contact. It was a matter of pinching the receiving wires and realigning the little wires on the bulb itself. 

I am going take your suggestion on the LEDs. I switched to LEDs on my 79 Fiat Spider dash and it made a grand difference in lamination, especially at night.  Right now I am trying to make my EV 1100 California rode worthy for my ride to Ontario and back home. 

[Jose Mendez]

Moto,
I found the neutral indicator switch and it well. I cleaned it and reattached it. The difficult part was getting the R/R cover back on. it took me a while.   

[StuCorpe]

KIWIROY - It has been a while since I did this and don't remember for sure if I tried the diodes to each side or not, in theory that would work.  But I had just changed over to all LED bulbs on the bike and the issue I had was as long as the turn signal indicator bulb was in the socket I had 4 way flashers whenever trying to use a turn signal.  Didn't matter R or L.  The only way I found to stop that was to remove the indicator lamp then everything worked properly.  So I added the 2 LEDS in order to have turn signal indicators.  I know I played with this for several days and tried several different things with diodes, just don't remember what combinations I tried.

[Kiwi_Roy]

KIWIROY - It has been a while since I did this and don't remember for sure if I tried the diodes to each side or not, in theory that would work.  But I had just changed over to all LED bulbs on the bike and the issue I had was as long as the turn signal indicator bulb was in the socket I had 4 way flashers whenever trying to use a turn signal.  Didn't matter R or L.  The only way I found to stop that was to remove the indicator lamp then everything worked properly.  So I added the 2 LEDS in order to have turn signal indicators.  I know I played with this for several days and tried several different things with diodes, just don't remember what combinations I tried.

If you use two diodes back to back with the arrow pointing towards the centre the juice cannot go from left to right or vice versa.
Left ------>|---|<------Right  the centre point |---| is where the dash lamp connects with the other contact to chassis.
if you use incandescent flasher lamps and an LED indicator like the 194 non polarized LED the power will flow from left to right the current drawn by the led (~ 10 mA) is not enough to light the opposite incandescent lamps which require an Amp or more.
left ---------194 LED--------<10 mA-----Right
The type 194 lamps I like are not polarity sensitive as they have 4 diodes in the base to rectify the power whichever direction it's going
https://www.superbrightleds.com/194-led-bulb-1-led-miniature-wedge-base

KIWIROY - It has been a while since I did this and don't remember for sure if I tried the diodes to each side or not, in theory that would work.  But I had just changed over to all LED bulbs on the bike and the issue I had was as long as the turn signal indicator bulb was in the socket I had 4 way flashers whenever trying to use a turn signal.  Didn't matter R or L.  The only way I found to stop that was to remove the indicator lamp then everything worked properly.  So I added the 2 LEDS in order to have turn signal indicators.  I know I played with this for several days and tried several different things with diodes, just don't remember what combinations I tried.

If you use two diodes back to back with the arrow pointing towards the centre the juice cannot go from left to right or vice versa.
Left ------>|---|<------Right  the centre point |---| is where the dash lamp connects with the other contact to chassis.
if you use incandescent flasher lamps and an LED indicator like the 194 non polarized LED the power will flow from left to right the current drawn by the led (~ 10 mA) is not enough to light the opposite incandescent lamps which require an Amp or more.
left ---------194 LED--------<10 mA-----Right
The type 194 lamps I like are not polarity sensitive (it says that right in the specs at the bottom Polarity Sensitive NO as they have 4 diodes in the base to rectify the power whichever direction it's going
https://www.superbrightleds.com/194-led-bulb-1-led-miniature-wedge-base