prevent grounding issues?

[jsandidge]

Before I put my engine back in the frame, I want to make sure the paint and powdercoat aren't going to cause grounding issues. Should I make sure all the areas where the engine and frame meet are completely metal-to-metal, or am I being overly cautious? If I do need to remove paint and pc from those areas, should I use some copper anti-sieze to prevent corrosion?

[eil]

No need to make sure the engine is grounded via the mounts. There should be a grounding wire that runs between the engine and the frame. On mine, it's attached to a bolt on the rear of the engine. A bit aft of the long engine mount bolt, I think. And a little tough to get to when everything is put together.

[Nessism]

Make sure that grounding cable has good bare metal contact. Maybe seal over bolt/cable end with some electrical safe RTV too.

I work in the aerospace industry and ground points are always sealed with some high tech stuff we denote "proseal". It's a catalyzed sealer that costs big bucks. The concept it to protect the ground point from corrosion by denying oxygen/water the opportunity to create corrosion in the future.

[posplayr]

Deoxite or equivalent from radio shack should serve your needs. The main ground you need to worry about is the single point ground that HHS r/r(-) is attached to. Where is yours?

[jsandidge]

I was under the impression that the engine needed to be grounded to the frame. Yes, I will make sure to get a good ground at the engine with the ground strap that goes to the neg post on the battery. And I have a spg for the r/r, starter solenoid, etc. attached to the frame at one of the airbox mounts.

[posplayr]

I was under the impression that the engine needed to be grounded to the frame. Yes, I will make sure to get a good ground at the engine with the ground strap that goes to the neg post on the battery. And I have a spg for the r/r, starter solenoid, etc. attached to the frame at one of the airbox mounts.

There are various ground paths (potentially at each mounting location) between frame and engine. But you don't want to rely on them.
The big one ground cable from the rear of the engine case to the battery is mainly there to provide a ground return for the starter which ground through its engien mounts. However if there are also any ancillary return currents (like a Dyna S returns ignition current through the engine block) then the large cable avoids having to rely on any engine to frame contacts to get back to teh battery. But as all know who have followed my grounding recommendations, that ignition current actually needs to get back to the R/R(-) so a jumper from the Battery(-)==>SPG==>R/R(-) completes the ground circuit.

If there are any return currents coming through the frame , then having a jumper from the frame to the SPG will pick those grounds up so there is no need to have frame to engine grounds.

If you have enough length then the SPG can be on the frame and eliminate one wire, but the best is to keep the wire from the R/R(-) to the SPG the shortest (at least less than 1 ft), so if you can still accomplish that with the SPG on the frame rather than somewhere on the side plate then that is just as good.

Ultimately the most important voltage losses are those between the Battery and the R/R. On the negative side, that means using a Single Point Ground(SPG) to minimize the voltage losses. The reason a SPG minimizes voltage loses is because you can keep the wire from the SSPG to the R/R(-) shorter this way. This wire carries all of the charging currents.

The reason you want this last piece of wire the shortest is because it has collected all the currents going into the SPG and delivers as much as 15 amps to the R/R(-). So what ever resistance that wire and contacts in this path have, you multiply it by 15 amps to get the voltage drop. (e.g. 0.1 ohms would mean a 1.5 volt drop at 15 amps ). If you has a 1.5V voltage drop between the Battery and the R/R(-) then if the R/R is working fine putting out 14.5V then the battery will only be at 13.0 volts and barely charging.

The wire between the Battery(-) and the SPG only has to carry about 1-4 amps which is the Battery charging current (current varies with battery voltage which is a function of battery state and RPM).

That return current bumps up to the full 15 amps only after you combine all the ground wires. So keeping the wire short from teh consolidation point (in this case SPG) to the R/R(-) minimize the drops when there is the most potential.

In addition, what I have been doing on the SSPB installations is to provide a SPG ground harness. All of the wires for SPG are crimped and soldered into a single crimp at the SPG. So it doesn't even matter if the SPG makes poor contact with it's mounting position. You then run the individual grounds with their own respective crimped and soldered ring lugs to the Battery and Frame. The last wire is for the R/R(-) and that gets twisted and soldered directly to the R/R(-) output(no contacts or connectors).

In this configuration, as long as you keep the ring lug attached to the battery clean (a spray of Deoxit), there are no other points that can cause voltage drops between Battery(-) and the R/R(-). And in addition the wire from the SPG to the R/R(-) is relatively kept short.

There is an analysis here of voltage drops in the installation of a SSPB and what size wires to select. So all fo this does not apply to a standard GS (unless you do have the SPPB installed). However the portion about voltage drops in the grounds can be implemented on any GS without having a SSPB. The SSPB does to the +12V side what the SPG does to the ground side side of the voltages.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?216224-Solid-State-Power-Box-STANDARD-INSTALLATION&p=1965992#post1965992

Remember all of these voltage drops are purely for wire sizes. As long as you stay within the recommended sizes and lengths wire size will not be a problem; it is the number and condition of connections/ring lugs that you have to worry about. This SPG configuration is optimal in that regard as well.

[BajaGuy]

I´ve been focusing a lot on the electrical system of my bike recently. I´m going to install posplayr´s grounding wires but am unsure as to the proper gauge to use. Can I get away with 14 gauge? Should I go all the way down to a battery cable´s 4 gauge? Is something in between acceptable?

[tom203]

14 gauge is fine. Very important to make sure R/R's ground has good contact with battery ground

[GSAddikt]

While most of this somewhat makes sense, I am far from an electrical person.. I get the basic concept and am going to go with the SPG but I'm unsure if I need to use the black/white wire from the original harness.. Maybe it will make more sense when I get back to it rather than making myself look more ignorant than I already am, lol.. I will be back if and when I confuse myself again.. Thanks y'all !!!!!

[posplayr]

While most of this somewhat makes sense, I am far from an electrical person.. I get the basic concept and am going to go with the SPG but I'm unsure if I need to use the black/white wire from the original harness.. Maybe it will make more sense when I get back to it rather than making myself look more ignorant than I already am, lol.. I will be back if and when I confuse myself again.. Thanks y'all !!!!!

Perhaps by now it should be clear that I have previously done a very detailed analysis of the charging system including all potential current flows to arrive at a optimal strategy for modifying the stock wiring configuration. If so, you should also realise that you don't need to understand all of the details either. The instruction are quite simple. See the figure i posted.

The B/W is a source of ground returns and yes it needs to be stacked with the other 2 or 3 ground wires (battery- and frame) at the SPG.

I suspect Ed is basing his recommendation based on his experience in restoring bikes using the SH-775. I assume he has gotten good results doing what he does. That said he is also very fastidious in his maintenance. Where i think he is erring is in extrapolating his results to all other situations and in ignoring the basic analysis I provided of the circuit. Empirical data of an isolated case does not negate the theoretical analysis that applies in all cases. When i say "theoretical", I simply mean applying ohm's law of V=IR!