cleaning up the wiring on my project bike

[mrhedges]

I have posted about this project before. Bike (1981 gs850) was stolen and recovered. The thief had wired a switch on to run the bike. I just rewired an used ignition on the bike I bought of eBay. I rewired it the way he had it just to get the bike going again. I rode it around town for a while. Then I parked it while I fixed some of the issues with the bike. I think I posted about it on this forum. Anyway I finally got around to it this winter, was about to take the bike for a test ride when It would not start, absolutely no power. Checked the fuses and they were fine. Power went to the fuses box too. I dug into the wires I connected back almost two years ago and one was a bit black. I used those crappy crimp connectors. DUH! well better to fail in the shop then on the street on my way to work or something.

I decided to start digging into the wiring. Checking the wiring diagram i have on my manual plus the full color one I got from Basecliff website. I have a lot of questions.
1. Is the wiring that different from 81 to 80? the full color diagram is from 80 and seems different then what's on the bike and what's in my paper manual for an '81
2. I'm going to post a pic from the front of the bike. But the light gray wire is what brings power to the starter. If I give it juice and hit the start button the starter spins up but it should be the orange wire right? If you look at the pic you can see my question mark. From what I can tell from the wiring diagram that's what brings power to the starter and the button? So did the thief wiring the start to like the running lights which is what the light grey wire is? Could this be a long term issue as the running lights are a smaller gauge?

3. I switched from using the cheapo crimp connectors to uninsulated crimp connectors and then heat shrink because this mechanic I like suggested that. I'm open to other ideas. But this mechanic suggest this over soldering. I'm actually enjoying all of this as a learning experience and want to know the proper way to do all this.
4. I'm trying to simplify the wiring as much as possible. How do I create a new wiring diagram, is there like software anyone uses to do this? As you can tell my handwriting is atrocious
5. Besides the dash lights the other thing I really want is Neutral light and maybe the oil light. I find it pretty helpful. So there's a bunch of wires coming from the transmission which goes to the gear shift indicator and another blue one that goes to the neutral light. I'm just a bit confused on how those thing operate? I'm guessing it sends power to the light if the bike is in neutral? How about the oil light?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks. I hope to dig back into this tomorrow.

[unfocused]

Neutral and oil pressure - the switch grounds the light causing it to illuminate. Power is sent to the bulb, through the bulb and grounded at the switch.
Don't forget your hi-beam indicator light - pic below showing my built instrument panel - it works oposite of the other 2 - it get's power from the hi-beam switch and uses a common ground

I do ALL of my connections just like your mechanic - for over 30 years. The thin wire is a PITA though - strip enough wire and double it up.

Orange/white wire is a common power wire however is NOT used for the starter solenoid. Now the O/W wire should go into the right control for power to the kill switch and the starter button. Not looking at the wiring diagram so forgive me if colors are wrong. Yellow/green is what's used on my 750 for the starter solenoid wire. The orange wire is after the kill switch and used throughout the system.

Not sure why you would need to create a new wiring diagram but if I need something like this, I draw it out, in pencil LOL.


dash.jpg