Pulled the fuse cover off and took out the fuse and inspected it. Not blown. Sounds like from your question that there's more to checking the fuses than just doing that

 

Just for the heck of it you could try to see if your 4-way flashers work. Turn the key on, press and hold both directional switches until the bulbs start flashing, then release the switches and turn off the key. The bulbs should continue to flash. See which element is flashing. To cancel the 4-way flashers, turn the key to on, and press both directional switches again, bulbs should stop flashing, turn key off. This should allow the directional element of the bulb to light and leave the running light element off (no power to it).

 

Ahhhhhh !!!!! Had not thought of that. I'll give that a try this evening.

 

I would say ground for sure... I'm a truck/trailer mechanic in northern mn and see a lot of light issues and anytime there's something real weird like that is going on, almost every single time it's the ground

 

You're probably fine checking the fuse like that. On a rare occasion you might miss a blown fuse. I was more fishing to see if you had a Volt/ohm meter. You can buy a meter for $20- $25 dollars that would serve you well working on a problem like this at Walmart, Radio Shack, Sears or Home Depot.


Did the tail light and rear turn signals work OK?

 

Yep. Got a Volt/ohm meter.

Brake, rear light, rear turn signals all work perfectly. Interesting though that the rear bulbs are 1156 (one filament only).

I'm starting to wonder if someone put 1157's up front by mistake and they should be 1156's up there too.

 

No, on the rear the "tail Light", separate housing is the running light - on all the time - BE wire from the ignition fuse. The turn signals are powered from the TSSM turn signal security module just like the front- same wires as the front.

In the front they are doing the turn and running in the same housing so dual filament bulb. Unless I'm interpreting the print wrong, it shows the blue wire dashed and says Running DOM only and I think that means Domestic as HDI means international.

 

Well well well ... It's nice to have an easy fix every now and then. Got two new 1157A's and put them in and whaddya know. Work exactly like I'd expect.

It's problems like this though that force me to go in and learn about the bike. Made me go out and order a Clymer Service manual. Made me find the fuse box and checked all of them (btw they don't make the fuse box easy to get to)

I feel smarter regarding my bike and all I did was have to replace two bulbs.

You guys are great on here. I really appreciate the help.

 

Ah, so 2 bad bulbs. What are the odds of that? Glad it was an easy fix.
Btw, for future bulb checking on whether it should be a single or dual filament bulb, just look in the socket and see if it has 1 or 2 contacts on the bottom spring loaded disc.