Wiring Harness Compatibility - GS400

[Soren]

Hey guys,

Looks like it's time for my first post since a few days of forum and google searches came up with no solid results.

I recently rescued an '81 GS400L who's PO had decided to start chasing some minor electrical gremlins along with starting some not so tasteful mods. He never got passed stripping it down and mauling the wiring harness when he gave up on it and sold it for $100... I couldn't resist that even if I know next to nothing about it, but I do know it was running just fine before he started the 'winter project'.

So frist hurdle to tackle will be the wiring harness, I want to avoid a quick patch job and try to reconstruct as much as I can. But am wondering if there are any models who share a similar harness I could harvest some connectors or even whole sections from. So far the only decent looking harnesses I can find are from GS450's, should I be able to harvest enough parts/connectors from one of those to warrant buying a full harness?


Thanks for any input

[pete]

Welcome to the forum Soren!

The twins are great little GS'.

Jump onto BassCliff's site (surprised he hasn't mega welcomed you yet) and get the manuals, there are two on there for these guys.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/

Then compare what you're looking at with yours.

I suspect you could almost take a 450 harness and drop it straight on your 400.

Alternatively, I've heard the twins make for an easy handbuilt harness also and it shouldn't take too long to do.

The advantage with a handbuilt one is that you can add extra fuses, get nice modern connectors, and get rid of some of the extraneous wiring.

Let us know how you go, and we also like lots of pic's here

[Mekanix]

The 81 400 L wiring harness is really simple.

What was hacked up ?

Download both of Basscliffs 400 books, they are both good and different and i think one of them has a better wiring diagram in color and each circuit has colored lines.

[Soren]

Thanks for the kind welcome!

Luckily the bike came with the original manual and wiring diagrams but when did more info ever hurt? thanks for the link.

The original harness looks quite worn, some connectors missing or hacked off, some extra wiring that was added and have no idea what for... its just a mess and was hoping to start fresh with somehting as close to a stock harness as possible to make the learning curve a bit easier for me.
I used to work with the PO but have no way of contacting him anymore, so I'll never know what his intentions were.

However this weekend I discovered a neat little motorcycle salvage yard here (Vancouver Island) with some very knowledgeable staff who happened to have a wiring harness from an '81 GS400!!! What are the chances? haha, it's in great shape and can't wait to slap it in

[pete]

Mate that's awesome luck! Let us know how you get on... need to see pic's yet too