Where to place single ground on GS650

[Guest]

Well I did the electrical testing on my bike and found that the stator was good, but the R/R was bad. I have a series-style R/R on order, but am looking for suggestions on where to have my one common ground on my 650. I will be grounding the R/R directly to the battery, as suggested, but am looking for a good spot to connect all the others to. Every picture I've seen is for the 850's which have the electrical components located in different spots. Right now on my bike most of the grounds are on the bottom of the battery box, but I wasn't sure if that was the greatest place or not.

[posplayr]

Well I did the electrical testing on my bike and found that the stator was good, but the R/R was bad. I have a series-style R/R on order, but am looking for suggestions on where to have my one common ground on my 650. I will be grounding the R/R directly to the battery, as suggested, but am looking for a good spot to connect all the others to. Every picture I've seen is for the 850's which have the electrical components located in different spots. Right now on my bike most of the grounds are on the bottom of the battery box, but I wasn't sure if that was the greatest place or not.

See GS Power and Grounding in my signature.

Pick a spot that is close to the R/R(-) and ties in frame,battery,harness B/W

The battery (-) is not necessarily the best place.

[tom203]

If you remove battery, you'll see a hex headed bolt that holds ignitor/reg plate to frame and air filter box (at lower front). This is a good common grounding point- absolutely make sure you run a ground wire from here to battery negative.
If you plan to put your series R/R in same spot as existing one (underneath that ignitor plate), best to remove both bolts holding plate and swing it up so you can attack the bolts holding R/R to plate- the swingarm makes bolt removal difficult without doing this.

[Jcgonzal]

See GS Power and Grounding in my signature.

Pick a spot that is close to the R/R(-) and ties in frame,battery,harness B/W

The battery (-) is not necessarily the best place.

Are you saying that the battery is not the best place for the R/R, or the rest of the components? I thought as I was reading through the Stator Papers it was said that battery negative is the best place to ground the R/R, but my head is still spinning from all the info I'm taking in.

[tom203]

Just looked at your bike pic ! more than your head will be spinning if you don't replace those handlebars ASAP- I'm amazed some PO didn't ditch them 30 years ago.

[Charlie G]

On my 650g I ran the new ground wire to the rear brake resivor. The 650G has the R&R mounted under under the air box. I created a heat sink adapter plate out of 1/4" aluminium plate which is tapped for central ground wires attachment, (battery, r&r and brake res,). I could provide pictures. You have a GL, right?

cg

[Jcgonzal]

I do! A pic would be awesome. I happened to have some aluminum plate around here too, so I could do the same.

[Charlie G]

I'll take a few pictures this morning and post'm up.

[Charlie G]

Attachment to alum plate.



Brake resivour, green wire.

Hope you get the idea.

cg

[Jcgonzal]

Yep, that makes perfect sense. Thanks!

[Jcgonzal]

Well thanks to everyone here, I bought a series R/R and got it all installed, and the battery is now charging perfectly! My last problem is that the PO had run a wire from the fuse box to the white wire on the headlight, which made the low beam work, but that way I couldn't select high beam. I removed the wire and took apart the switch, and it looks like I may be missing something:



Is there supposed to be something in the lower left? Or is that part of the headlight on/off switch that we didn't get in the US? The tail light now doesn't light when the ignition is turned on, but does light with the brake switches, so I'm guessing it's all connected. Any ideas as to how to troubleshoot from here? I'm not the greatest at electrical, and the wiring diagrams in the manual are a bit tough for me to decipher.

[Steve]

Just looked at your bike pic ! more than your head will be spinning if you don't replace those handlebars ASAP- I'm amazed some PO didn't ditch them 30 years ago.

Not everybody enjoys a leaning-forward riding position.

And, who's to say that he's not 5' 2" and NEEDS to have bars that reach back to him, because he can't reach forward to them?

.

[Charlie G]

I took mine apart because the horn didn't work and ball bearings and springs went flying. I didn't realise they were missing for two weeks. There are some fine pictures in a thread on here somewhere about taking those switches apart. Do a search for taking the left switch apart. I can't remember all the parts in there and dinner is ready. Got to go before the wife throws something.

cg

[Charlie G]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=148784&highlight=switch+repair

One good picture in this one.

[Jcgonzal]

Thanks for the pic. So it appears I'm not missing anything on the lower left, but now I managed to lose one of the copper spring-loaded contacts for the turn signals. Guess I should have done some reading before assuming the switch was gonna be simple!