1982 GS1100gk

[Guest]

Does anyone that has a 82 or similar year gs1100gk post a pic of your battery with the cables hooked up I bought a project gk im wanting to get back on the road but I noticed there are like 4 or 5 cables ran to the battery box is that normal? I think I have them hooked up correctly but when I hook up jumper cables to the battery no lights turn on and it has no power at all.

[tom203]

Probably creativity from some previous owner....can't help with pic, but here's a similar wiring diagram.
its ok to use jumper cables , but only from a non running vehicle. Most car alternators will over power the bikes system.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/images/GS1100G_1982_wiring.jpg

[Steve]

I will start by confirming that using jumper cables is OK, but the donor vehicle MUST NOT BE RUNNING.

Yes, they are both "12 volt" systems, but they operate differently and the car CAN overpower the bike. Specifically, if the voltage regulator on the car is set to 14.4 volts and the bike is set to something just a bit less, say 14.2, the bike will try to regulate the voltage. The problem there is that the car's alternator will simply work harder to maintain that 14.4. Many of today's vehicles have alternators capable of putting out well over 100 amps, even at idle. The bike's regulator is rated at about 25-30 amps, it will soon give up.

Now to your wiring question. At the positive terminal, there will be a large wire that goes to the starter solenoid. One end of that wire will have a smaller wire along with it. The smaller wire might be at either end of the starter wire, the smaller wire feeds the MAIN fuse in the fuse box. Unless there have been accessories added, like a battery tender lead, those will be the only wires at the positive terminal.

On the negative terminal, you will find a large wire that goes to the back of the crankcase to ground the starter. There will also be two or three smaller wires. They will all be black, with a white stripe. It is easy to lose one between the battery box and the air box, so look carefully.

On my bikes, I have tried to minimize the number of wires attached to the battery. For the positive end of things, I make my connections at the starter solenoid, rather than the battery. On the negative side, I have a bolt near the battery that accepts all the ground wires. There is then just one wire that goes from there to the battery. That means there is likely just one large and one small wire at each battery terminal.

No, I don't have a GK, but my G and GL bikes are remarkably similar.

.

[Redman]

I have GK, and am willing to get picture, but will be of little use to you.

You say 5 wires to battery.
So, some of them will be non-stock added wires. (hence why pic of mine will be of little use to you)

Positive have larger wire (red) that goes to solenoid.
Negative have larger wire (black) that goes to back of engine case (top of trnasmission) and another smaller wire (black/white) that goes into the wiring harness.
All the other wires will be owner added non-stock stuff.
Maybe some are for a battery charger connections, or maybe for heated gear connections, or aux lights, or maybe added ground.
Trace them out, see what you find. If in doubt, leave them off till you figure it out.

Chances are this has nothing to do with "no lights came on", well, unless you got what should have been a ground wire on the battery positive,,, but that probably would have made itself known as soon as you did that.

Oh, other concern..... if you got a replacement battery; be concerned if the positive and the negitive post of the battery are on the correct side. (some batterys are opposite of others).

[031mcc]

I have GK, and am willing to get picture, but will be of little use to you.

You say 5 wires to battery.
So, some of them will be non-stock added wires. (hence why pic of mine will be of little use to you)

Positive have larger wire (red) that goes to solenoid.
Negative have larger wire (black) that goes to back of engine case (top of trnasmission) and another smaller wire (black/white) that goes into the wiring harness.
All the other wires will be owner added non-stock stuff.
Maybe some are for a battery charger connections, or maybe for heated gear connections, or aux lights, or maybe added ground.
Trace them out, see what you find. If in doubt, leave them off till you figure it out.

Chances are this has nothing to do with "no lights came on", well, unless you got what should have been a ground wire on the battery positive,,, but that probably would have made itself known as soon as you did that.

Oh, other concern..... if you got a replacement battery; be concerned if the positive and the negitive post of the battery are on the correct side. (some batterys are opposite of others).

I checked I have one large red wire going to positive terminal and one big black wire going to the negative then I have two smaller wires going into the wiring harness and then I also have one that runs under the battery box to what looks like a regulator/rectifier. Here's a picture of the wires disconnected.

[Redman]

Yu say Two wires going to wiring harness... hum.... let me look at your pic

[Redman]

Hum... the two by the negative cable (top of your pic) look to be stock. Can see that one of them is the stock blk/wht, so I would say those two do go along with the negitive.

THe one by the positive cable (bottom of your pic) looks to be an added wire. THe wire itself and the crimp connector look to be added-generic non-stock.
Black/white is usally used for ground in motorcycles.
But it sure looks close to the positive, like that is where it came from. But maybe it was run past there to get to the negitive.
Hey, is that the wire that you say goes under battery to the R/R...? Directly to the r/r? or does it make a connection to the r/r wiring? If it connects to the black wire then it is negitive, if it connects to the red wire, then it is positive.