wheres my ground on 82 gs1100L?

[saddlewarmer]

Got the bike and it wont crank. juice to solenoid. ground case of solenoid and hit starter switch and it cranks. cant tell if a wire is off or missing. po did some wiring work on it.
manual no help. bike will run with or without this ground. any ideas?????

[chef1366]

Check the ground on the battery and the cable where it ends. Should be under the airbox on the engine itself.

[saddlewarmer]

that ground is there and clean and hooked up. how does the solenoid and all the accessories mounted around it get their ground? do they ground thru the wiring harness or is there a seperate frame ground? wiring diagram i have does not really indicate how ground is hooked up.

[nert]

Couple questions.
Do lights, horn and accessories operate with out the engine running?
If so, you probably have adequate ground to your chassis and engine.

When you ground the case, i assume you are connecting the metal body of the solenoid to ?? Are connecting it to the battery negative, or to the chassis at some point?

Is the solenoid the correct one? Internally grounded type or did some one change it? Is the solenoid bracket connected to metal, or did some one relocate it to plastic, non metal mount or hanging by a zip tie?

[J_C]

I think I have a ground on the swingarm too on my '80

[saddlewarmer]

i am grounding the case of the solenoid. it may not be original. it is mounted it appears in the original spot for it from the pictures i have seen in the clymers manual that came with bike. lights, horn, etc appear to work ok. it has a possible petcock issue so back has been started and ran for a very short period of time to verify some operation. i just bought bike last monday.
some wiring has been modified, replaced or repaired from what i can tell at this point. the solenoid has 3 connections on it: battery, to starter, and to starter switch. no other connections visible. just wondering if other items mounted to same location need to be grounded and if so is the ground thru harness or is a seperate ground attached to the mounting plate.

[nert]

I still don't know if you are grounding the case to the chassis or directly to the battery. In any case, because you have lights and accessories with the engine "off" we can assume you the battery is grounded to the chassis. I have (3) 82' GS1100GLZ bikes, but no just GS1100L.

I just got home from work, I am upstairs and my shoes are off, and I just popped a top. Its raining out. Oh hell, i'll go out to the shed and remove a side cover. {pause}

I am back. My solenoid is like yours. However there is a ground wire, black with white tracer, that comes out of the same harness as the RED multiconnector plug right next to the solenoid, and that "black/w" ground wire terminates at the solenoid mounting screw, providing ground for the solenoid case, as the solenoid mounting bracket is part of the solenoid case. If your harness is that trashed and you can't find the "black/w" ground wire nearby, supply and run your own ground wire to the solenoid mounting screw. I am sure your wiring diagram does show a ground symbol for the solenoid. Probably is not explicit to how. But you do need one.
shoes off, back to my beer.
keep in touch
nert

[Tom MLC]

Just in case you haven't checked the easy stuff. Like the kill switch, or the clutch switch. Both of those should be checked with an ohm meter for proper function.

[saddlewarmer]

I still don't know if you are grounding the case to the chassis or directly to the battery. In any case, because you have lights and accessories with the engine "off" we can assume you the battery is grounded to the chassis. I have (3) 82' GS1100GLZ bikes, but no just GS1100L.

I just got home from work, I am upstairs and my shoes are off, and I just popped a top. Its raining out. Oh hell, i'll go out to the shed and remove a side cover. {pause}

I am back. My solenoid is like yours. However there is a ground wire, black with white tracer, that comes out of the same harness as the RED multiconnector plug right next to the solenoid, and that "black/w" ground wire terminates at the solenoid mounting screw, providing ground for the solenoid case, as the solenoid mounting bracket is part of the solenoid case. If your harness is that trashed and you can't find the "black/w" ground wire nearby, supply and run your own ground wire to the solenoid mounting screw. I am sure your wiring diagram does show a ground symbol for the solenoid. Probably is not explicit to how. But you do need one.
shoes off, back to my beer.
keep in touch
nert

Battery is grounded to the rear of engine only. iam grounding the solenoid to either point, frame or battery and it works. NO wire to solenoid mounting screw! i think that answers my question, yes my wiring diagram does show a ground on the solenoid, but wasnt sure how the actual physical ground was done. thank you for your help! it is immensely appreciated.
Mike

[saddlewarmer]

Just in case you haven't checked the easy stuff. Like the kill switch, or the clutch switch. Both of those should be checked with an ohm meter for proper function.

those items were checked and found to be ok and functioning correctly. thank you for your reply, again immensely appreciated to you and all that replied.