Good morning all. Mark, I'm asking about the jump wire because in the instructions it says there's three wires there but on mine it only has two, sorry for the confusion. The taillight bulb is good. This is why I really hate electrical! The good news is I now have a spare regulator and stator.  I must have bypassed the rectifier, don't see it and I have a brown and red wire connected together, guessing those connected to the rectifier.

Should be white and red connected under the tank for rectifier bypass. 

Wiring diagram shows only green/red and yellow (might be yellow/white) at that harness plug. Older models had another green wire there.

Did you remove stock voltage regulator?  You need to if you didn't.  "extra yellow/white" might go to stock regulator?  Take it off the bike if still there to avoid confusion and possible connection someday. 

The way you have it wired, the red from battery feeds the white which is tied to green/red.  Since you jumped green/red to yellow, the headlight on-off switch on bars will turn the headlight on and off even with key off. With key on, a different set of contacts in on-off switch turn taillight on. 

Which is why it sounds most likely that the light on-off switch on handlebars is not on.  Headlight and taillight are run from two different power sources and contacts in switch.  Headlight gets power from the red-white-green-yellow path described above and taillight gets power from same brown that runs all the other battery powered stuff like horn and signals you say work.

Did you maybe disconnect the handlebar switch? 

 

Thank you for that explanation, I will look at all of it this evening. Gotta run a friend around who was in a car accident last week and is not up to driving. Thanks again, you're a great help!

Checked everything with my limited electrical capabilities/understanding it all looks to be connected correctly...

Do you have a voltmeter or test light you can check for voltage with?

I have both.

Troubleshoot headlight- In the picture you took with the jumper, you should have 12v at the green/red and of course jumper should transfer that 12v to yellow.

If no power there, then look under tank where rectifier was and should have 12v at red with a solid connection to white.  

If power at green/red and yellow then probably have to dig into headlight bucket connections.  

Thank you Mark, I will do that...

I tested green/red wire with volt meter, got 12 volts. I then probed connections in headlight bucket with test light, no power. Both tests were with key off.

Make sure your jumper wire is good and getting power to yellow.

Then in headlight bucket find the harnesses going to the headlight switch on the handlebar.

By memory, there should be a yellow/white and a yellow. Solid yellow should be easily traced to headlight plug.

Yellow/white comes from yellow/white at jumper wire... so yellow/white coming from frame and connecting to yellow/white that goes to handlebar headlight switch should have 12v.