Wiring Harness ?

[Anonymous]

Well guys, I have started. I replaced the key ignition last night. I hope to get started replacing the main wiring harness on the 850 tonight.

I had some electrical issues that turned out to be shorted out, melted, fused together wires in the headlight bucket under the faring. I did a bandaid job until I could get all of the parts in. The parts are now in. The reason for the initial investigation was my console lost all indicators except for headlight.

Is there anything that I might need to watch for when attempting to weave this huge snake through the frame of my bike?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Replacing wire harnesses can be really confusing. Not even the factory manual will show the correct routing of all those wires. The best advice I can offer is to take a bunch of photos of the existing one before you remove it.
Axel

[Jay B]

Might want to label some of those wires as you pull them out. Might make comparing them easier to do.

[Anonymous]

I noticed that the Clymer doesn't help very much. I hadn't really thought about pics or labeling. I was hoping that I might be able to run them sort of side by side and swapping connectors on the fly. I haven't looked close enough yet to see if there is enough room to manage this. I had to work late tonight, so I am planning on digging in tomorrow night.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

I feel your pain! My simple turn signal issue has turned into a full wiring inspection for loose and fried wires and connectors. Once I fix the main problem, I plan to re do the harness this winter also. I am going to use good quality high end electrical connectors from Anderson Powerpole corp. I love these as they have lower resisitance and are silver plated. But this is a future winter project for when the tank and side covers are getting painted! have fun!
GY

[Anonymous]

Well, it seems the years do matter on these wiring harnesses. I got an '82 off eBay and it does not match. Please be careful.

I am now trying to trace down manually what is going wrong and where. I am pretty good with electricity, I don't do motors.

Half of my indicators are intermittant. Right now I get the high-beam, the tach lights, speedo, headlight, and tail light. That is all. No fuel gauge, gear indicators, oil, brake, or turn signals.

Does anyone know where to start? I have traced down a few crimped/half-cut lines and gotten them repaired. I had some wires from the ignition key melt, I have replaced the ignition and cut out a lot of the wire from the harness and put a new to me connector on.

I am starting to get frustrated.

[Anonymous]

Guys, I feel like a moron. A friend came over and gave me some help and we found it to be a fuse problem. It seems that the previous owners placed an extra fuse in the fuse box. I do not have a cover for the box and did not pay enough attention. This extra fuse caused an intermittent short to the system. Removal of this extra fuse has corrected my electrical problems.

Thanks for everyone's assistance.

I am now going to create another thread about the fuses.

[Anonymous]

Im in the process of renovating my wiring harness too. So far i've removed the monitoring box, the self canceling turn signal unit and have redirected and connected the wires coming out of these units. I still have to test if my work was successful, and also test alternator output and if the r/r is working properly(I dont think it is tho ).
I found a previous owners botch job, something had burnt through the wires so rather than soldering them together he used hot glue