I have a 1990 softail custom that the headlight and tail light both quit working - I am pretty sure that I have a short in the wiring harness under the gas tank, but before I remove the tank I was wanting to know if there are any common pinch spots or rub spots to check first? The short is in the blue wire that comes from the front top circuit breaker - the power wire going to the circuit breaker is yellow and has the speedo lights and the feed wire for the headlight and tail light which is a dead short or short to ground -- any help would be great

 

did you check the breaker area under the seat/on the rear fender?

 

The only breakers that I can find are under the speedo - I have some kind of module under the seat next to one relay, it looks like everything else maybe under the speedo, I have 3 circuit breakers and a turn signal flasher under the speedo? Not sure if someone has added anything or not?

 

Disconnect the wire and see if the breaker has power.

Touch the wire to the breaker and see if it clicks.

If checking the the wire with a meter....if the bulbs are in...it will show a dead short to ground.

 

So far I have removed the rear fender and all wiring for the tail light and turn signals and found multiple shorts. I traced the wiring harness under the gas tank and that seems to be. I am going to make up a new harness for the tail light and turn signals and see if that does the trick. At least winter is coming.

 

made up the new rear wiring harness and that fixed the short.

 

I had a very similar problem a couple of years back.
My tail light harness had shorted where it passes through the rear fender. There's no grommet in the fender and the edge of the hole had cut through several wires, you could barely see the cuts, it was as though it had been done with a knife!
To prevent this happening again I cut a standard 25mm grommet and glued it into the fender.

Hope this helps prevent anyone with a Softail having the same problem.