Simple problem, RIGHT!

[OldWrench]

As some of you may know, lost my turn signals and brake lights a few days ago. Normally not a big problem but this time it was a dead short somewhere and it wasn't a light bulb front or rear. I did find the short after tearing the wiring harness apart from the front to just before the voltage regulator. Found short in wiring for turn signal flasher.

As I was pulling things apart I separated the for the stator wiring, what a mess.

So obviously I was very close to losing my stator to a dead short.
I have been wanting to modify the wiring for some time now, or at least thinking about it so the prompted me to make some changes. I put a new distribution panel in replacing the old fuse panel. Needed to ad a 30 amp relay to power up the panel. That eliminated all but three wires coming off the key switch. Red, Black, and the Brown for park position. I also separated the brake lights and turn signal power and put them of separate circuits.

As I dug into this harness I was really upset at what I found, the PO only had two colors of wire, Red, and white, he replaced some green wires (gound) with Red and others with white. I spent three days on this mess but it is finally done and proper color of wires all the way back to the tail lights. Amazingly everything works, stator and VR working fine. Replace three wire flasher with two wire. Tail lights and turn signals do seem to be brighter but haven't checked voltage to them.

View attachment 1

Tearing the wiring harness apart is easy, getting it back together properly is not fun.

I really recommend everyone keep and eye on your stator wiring, the plug looked ok from the outside, different story internally.

 

[OldWrench]

Sorry posted the same picture twice. I do have pictures of finished distribution panel and rear wiring if interested. I soldered all wires to the distribution panel.

 

[joedrum]

to me hardest thing i do is post and pics LOL

 

[dan filipi]

Looking good. A lot of work but the benefits should be worth it.

 

[Ansimp]

Great job :good:

 

[brianinpa]

I really try to keep the wire colors as close to stock as possible. Sometimes it I use what I have available, but I will eventually go back and change it back to the original color some time.

The new fuse box was one of the major changes I wanted to accomplish with my engine change in my 81. I like the blade fuses a lot more than the old glass tubes.

 

[zman]

For sure check any of the plugs whenever you can, I take a spare blade connector and make sure the females blade receiver are tight, if not use a paper clip and remove them and give them a little squeeze..if kept tight there should be no trouble.

 

[OldWrench]

Now that I have had an opportunity to finish and check voltages I'm really happy with the results. You will notice two black wired on separate circuits, this is where I split the turn signals and brake light power source.

I did change some of the connectors to water tight connectors. I have used these before on other projects like boat trailer wiring, and truck applications and they are great connectors. They are a little more work to put together but I feel well worth it.

Time to go for a nice long ride. :BigGrin:

 

[mcgovern61]

OldWrench » Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:32 am[/url]":3fhh61cp]
I did change some of the connectors to water tight connectors. I have used these before on other projects like boat trailer wiring, and truck applications and they are great connectors. They are a little more work to put together but I feel well worth it.

:head bang: Sure........go ahead and do the right thing, use those watertight connections! I am in the middle of rebuilding my old '82 wire harness and I was only going to clean and/or replace plug connectors with the original type where needed. But now, the bar has been raised and I will be real hard pressed to not use the watertight connectors because they look great and make too much sense! :cheeky: :Awe: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy:

Nice work!!! :clapping:

 

[OldWrench]

The picture of the plugs points out one of my mistakes, the lower plug center wire doesn't have the seal on it. Must have put that one together after I had a couple of beers.

 

[dan filipi]

Looks nice. Watertight would be my first choice as well.

 

[joedrum]

looks great......

 

[Ansimp]

I don't think I will be riding the Rats Nest in that deep of water so probably won't need watertight connectors!!
:smilie_happy: :smilie_happy: :smilie_happy:
Nice work :good:

 

[chuck c]

NICE job! My old 80 Zuki had dim lights and trouble starting so I add an ignition switch bypass relay and it made a very noticeable difference in light brightness and speed of the turn sig flash. The old switch had enough resistance to "dim" the entire bike. Because of that success I want to do it on the wing too. The only thing I'm afraid of is not being able to stop there and replacing the fuse panel, connectors, etc. like you did. That's a winter project, not for now!

 

[OldWrench]

Ansimp the water tight connectors are probably and overkill, and I admit, I had a bunch of them. One thing about them, is the pin connections are very secure.
I do appreciate the positive responses.

Now to the last issue, color coding.

This is just one example of many I had to deal with. The PO had two colors of wire, red and white. Much of my time was spent replacing wiring like shown here. The PO had that red (negative) wire hooked to the voltmeter. Of course this negative is for the marker and turn signal lights. There is a lesson here. splicing too many wires to one circuit is a really bad idea, especially when you are dealing with 22 and 18 gauge wires. I was losing over a volt between the battery and volt meter, why because of the negative circuit. Now you electricians out there understand this probably much better than I do. But it is like if you are on a four lane freeway and it gets choked down to two, what happens, well things don't move too well. Maybe that is a bad analogy but it is all I can come up with right now. Not only that if you force too much amperage through a wire, guess what, you can create smoke.

 

[OldWrench]

I forgot to mention, I have created a schematic of the changes I have made, I'm still putting the final touches on it and will post it when finished. I can promise you it won't be as nice as Dan's. This way in the future it won't be a hunt and guess where a wire goes.

 

[chuck c]

Does anyone know a good supplier of small amounts of wire in lots of colors so we can do something close to oem when rewiring?

 

[OldWrench]

There are plenty of wire suppliers, what is hard to find is multi colored wire. So what I have done is used permanent markers to duplicate the multicolored wires and that seems to work ok. You might check out the "Wire Barn" they sell packets of wire in assorted colors and in shorter lengths (15 to 16 feet I believe). Wire these days is not cheap, you can also get the pin extraction tools and crimpers for various connectors.

 

[dan filipi]

Try auto stereo and alarm shops, pull you off 20 feet of each color. Do ask them how much $ first.

 

[OldWrench]

Just found some multi-colored wire. the company is "wireandsupply.com" looked under automotive GLX wire, I just looked at 18ga and found 34 different color combinations ranging from .13 to .16 cents per foot. Looks like you can duplicate any color combination our wings have.