Yellow ignition wires on 78 GS750...

[Ludeykrus]

Quick question.

I don't have the manual or a schematic for this bike at the moment. I just cleaned and rebuilt the carbs, but left it sitting out back with the dogs with no side covers on. The dogs pulled the wires out from the ignition-side harness. I'm trying to fire this thing up and want to make sure I'm not having an ignition issue:

There are three yellow wires with bare broken leads. Do these all three splice together? One's coming from a small two-wire component mounted under the battery box, one's from the engine wiring harness, and one's from the r/r I believe....

Thanks in advance.

[Ludeykrus]

anyone....

[BassCliff]

Hi Mr. Ludeykrus,

There's an owner's manual for a '78 750 HERE. But the wiring diagram is not very high resolution.

There's a wiring diagram for a 750E HERE. It may be more beneficial.

There are service manuals for the 8-valve and 16-valve 750s on my website. Please help yourself.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[LarryA_Texas]

Quick question.

I don't have the manual or a schematic for this bike at the moment. I just cleaned and rebuilt the carbs, but left it sitting out back with the dogs with no side covers on. The dogs pulled the wires out from the ignition-side harness. I'm trying to fire this thing up and want to make sure I'm not having an ignition issue:

There are three yellow wires with bare broken leads. Do these all three splice together? One's coming from a small two-wire component mounted under the battery box, one's from the engine wiring harness, and one's from the r/r I believe....

Thanks in advance.

HECK NO!!! do not splice those three wires together. They are from an aftermarket stator and each wire carries one leg of the voltage from your alternator. You will short out the stator if you touch them together possibly causing damage.

With the bike running each of those wires could be carrying 70-80 volts AC. Since each leg of the stator is the same it doesn't matter which wire goes where, but they all have to be connected to the voltage regulator. That's the little box with cooling fins under the battery. Suzuki wires it up with two of the stator wires (they are yellow and White with blue on a factory installation) to the R/R unit. The third goes into the wiring harness. On older models it goes to the headlight. On anything made in the '80s it just makes a loop in the headlight and comes back to the R/R unit. There the voltage is turned into DC and regulated to 13 or 14 volts.

[LarryA_Texas]

anyone....

OK...wait. I'm going to back up. When you said three yellow wires I read that as three wires together, but re-reading your post you seem to be talking about a wire from three different places in the bike. Not from the same bundle.

[Joe Nardy]

Could you post a pic? That might help us identify the wires.....

Thanks,
Joe

[Redman]

.............

There are three yellow wires with bare broken leads. Do these all three splice together? One's coming from a small two-wire component mounted under the battery box, one's from the engine wiring harness, and one's from the r/r I believe....

Thanks in advance.

Yes, Picture would be good.

Maybe some of the confusion is related to:
- "a small two-wire component mounted under the battery box.."
Componet under battery box would be the R/R (at least on the 3 GS I know, an 80 an 82 and another 82), but that is not a two wire device. Has one wire harnes (4 wires) and a ground wire.
- "and one's from the r/r I believe...."

But to try to give an answer:
3 yellow wires sounds like the wires from an aftermarket stator or maybe an aftermarket R/R.

When you said you have 3 broken yellow wires. Do you mean you have 3 wires broke in half, so have 6 ends, all yellow? Again, picture would help.

In general, the 3 wires from the stator need to be connected to the 3 wires to the R/R, doesnt matter which of the 3 to which of the 3.
Now, a 78, will have the complication of one stator phase would orginally been wired to/thru an extra contact on the headlight switch, but often that is done away with by most owners.
.

[Steve]

Now, a 78, will have the complication of one stator phase would orginally been wired to/thru an extra contact on the headlight switch, but often that is done away with by most owners.
.

With a '78, it's also possible that the r/ and the /r might be separate.

On many earlier models, the rectifier and regulator were separate units. Not sure when they combined them, but it was around '79. Might have been '78 on some models, though, might have been '80 on others.

The fact that there are three yellow wires does suggest aftermarket components, so there is the chance that it might have been upgraded to a single unit.

.