New Harness?

[Guest]

Hey everyone,

I've been noticing that the wires on my bike aren't in the greatest shape. A lot of the wires are good, but some have become brittle and I'm afraid of ending up with things like intermittent shorts, or a wire connection breaking off and having to spend hours chasing it. Since we got snow last night I'm thinking toward winter projects for my bike and was considering the rewiring it.

I had a quick look, but found that bikebandit says the wiring loom is discontinued. Does anyone know if a new one (OEM or aftermarket) is available, and has anyone had any good or bad experiences with them? (1980 GS550 L btw)

My brother gave me a wiring loom out of an SUV and there's definitely enough variety in colour that I could replace every wire with a new one so if there isn't a replacement harness available that was my next idea. The only issue is that most of the wires in the donor harness are 1g smaller than the factory Suzuki wires. I haven't actually measured them but they're the next gauge smaller so I was wondering if that would be ok so long as things like the leads to the coils and major components like that are the OEM size? Any advice would be great as we all know what can happen when wiring isn't quite right.

Thanks

[Steve]

Have you checked eBay? I found this one and this one with a quick search for "suzuki 550 harness".

There is a third harness there, too, but it's from an '83. It would probably work, but might have a couple of extra wires that were not needed on your '80.

.

[Nessism]

If Bike Bandit says the harness is discontinued then Suzuki stopped supplying them. There are no suitable aftermarket harness for your bike as far as I know.

My suggestion is to remove the harness from your bike, unwrap all the tape and inspect each wire and terminal end. Replace the wires that seem at risk. Contact cleaner works well to remove grease/oil and if you are careful you should be able to clean most of the teminal ends with a stainless steel brush and/or scouring pad to remove any corrosion. Once everything is clean, retape the harness using some high quality 3M electrical tape or similar.

Lots of work.

[cp___32]

Yeah thanks. I did have a quick look on Ebay as well. Though that might be what I end up having to go with in the end, I was hoping to replac as many of the wires on the bike with some brand new copper if possible.
I thought I rememberd Pos saying something about not wanting to cut up a perfectly good new harness, but obviously his bike is a tad newer than mine so the availability would no doubt be better. I just figured if I could use what I have at home already then that would be cool, but if those with more knowledge and experience than I suggest otherwise, and there's nothing new available, to ebay I go

[BassCliff]

Hi,

If you go here:

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/storagecliff/images/electrical_odd-n-ends.html

... and scroll down you will find articles for repairing and cleaning your wiring harness. (Thanks to Mr. Matchless and Mr. Joe Guilbeau!)

You might find some helpful hints there.



Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff