Smoking hot wires !! Whats up?

[Devilwinner]

My 81' 1100 GS is nearly ready to go after being down for almost a year . I fired it up yesterday and ran it for about 10 min . Had the saet off and airbox out because I charged the battery before hand. Noticed a foul smell and traced it ti a bundle of wires that sit right behind the fuse box ,kinda over the battery. The were so hot the the wire insulation was melting. A couple of these wires lead to the fuse box and a couple go to the small black plastic box next to the fuse box. Never has this happened in the past....help

[Jethro]

These are most likely the wires that go to the r/r form the stator. You probably have bad connections somewhere, maybe a bad harness. You need to go through the wiring and check for hardened, burnt wires. Replace them, clean all the connectors, then do a charging system test. If that checks out alright, test for voltage drop form the battery to the headlight, tailight, ignition etc. Hopefully it's just a bad connection or wire, but it could be the r/r and or stator.

[Jon78gs1000]

On my 78 GS 1000 I had to open up the wire harness and clean and check all the wires. I took my soldering gun and went over every bullet connection. I had a o/w wires from the fusebox that had the same problem as yours. Seems to have fixed it.
Green gunk (corrosion) = resistance at connection points.

[Devilwinner]

That will be the order of the day tomorrow . I just hope its not the stator . I am a newbie when it comes to dealing with the elect system. Could it also be a bad ground connection ?

[Devilwinner]

The wires heating up are coming from the stator. Cleaned connections and the grounds and its still heating up. Is there one thing above the others that would likely be a problem after sitting for a year? All lights are working fine ,not sure if that means anything or not.

[rustybronco]

with mine it was a bad ( shorted ) r/r, hope it helps.

[Jethro]

The wires heating up are coming from the stator. Cleaned connections and the grounds and its still heating up. Is there one thing above the others that would likely be a problem after sitting for a year? All lights are working fine ,not sure if that means anything or not.

Ok, if you cleaned the connections and the wires are still getting too hot you most likely have a bad r/r. Sitting a year doesn't nessecarily casue it, this can happen at any time.

Do you have a mulit-meter? You need to do a quick check of the charging system. On the homepage of this website there is a link to the GS Garage. Follow that to the "Stator Papers" and do the tests like stated. This will tell you if your charging system is shot, and can pinpoint what the problem is.