Electrical system rewiring for idiots?

[posplayr]

A guy from perthstreetbikes.com is doing up a gs1000 wiring harness from scratch. The layout board is a good idea. Wish i did that before fixing mine. At first was not sure how much trouble building a peg booard was but with an old harness probably not too much.

I was going to suggest that before as that is typically how harnesses are built. Looks like an engineer or electrical tech doing it.

[tejasmud]

LOL

Dining room table, heat gun, wire strippers, label machine, soldering iron, just missing all the connectors.

Sort of like this, nook, but with an existing harness.






Which turned out like this.

[Theo]

LOL

Dining room table, heat gun, wire strippers, label machine, soldering iron, just missing all the connectors.

Sort of like this, nook, but with an existing harness.






Which turned out like this.

Looks real good. Where did you get the vinyl covering for the wires?
-Theo

[tejasmud]

Looks real good. Where did you get the vinyl covering for the wires?
-Theo

McMaster Carr. http://www.mcmaster.com/#heat-shrink-tubing/=4w5r8z

5/8" before shrink. 2to1 on the large tubing. It might have been easier with 3/4". If that is what you are refering too.

All new connectors came from either

Vintage Connectors,

http://www.vintageconnections.com/

Eastern Beaver,

http://www.easternbeaver.com/

or Oregon Motorcycle Parts.

http://www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/

In opinion, if going to this extent on the harness, replace the main ground/earths, on my harness it was the Black with white tracer wires, with 14 gauge wiring on the main. The Red wire to the ignition, fuse box, and R/R were replaced with 14 gauge as well. The stator yellow wires on my harness were removed, there were two sets of connectors for some wierd reason, but I just decided to run the stator leads straight to the R/R. Additional grounding for back-up off the R/R as well.

This is on a 85 700E, other harnesses might be different.

In light, the Suzuki harness is pretty simple once unwraped. Looks daunting on the bike, but once off where it can be examined, pretty simple.

This is what the rear tail light and turn signals looked like after. I decided to go with all locking connectors. Requires changing the mate connectors as well.

I was short of the labeling of the connectors/wires, but after you do this, you will just know what wires go where.

[willie]

If you really want to do it up right go with MIL spec grade teflon coated wire. The insulation is much thinner which makes routing the wire around the bike easier, plus the insulation doesn't degrade as fast as common PVC coated wire.

Great idea Ed. Do you have a particular source you could turn me on to? Rewiring my Buffalo is on my To Do List.
Thanks,
Willie

[Theo]

Great idea Ed. Do you have a particular source you could turn me on to? Rewiring my Buffalo is on my To Do List.
Thanks,
Willie

I've used this site before to get some PTFE wire. It's pricey though.

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=138348+500003+1000474

[posplayr]

That looks much better than what i was expecting from a home made harness

McMaster Carr. http://www.mcmaster.com/#heat-shrink-tubing/=4w5r8z

5/8" before shrink. 2to1 on the large tubing. It might have been easier with 3/4". If that is what you are refering too.

All new connectors came from either

Vintage Connectors,

http://www.vintageconnections.com/

Eastern Beaver,

http://www.easternbeaver.com/

or Oregon Motorcycle Parts.

http://www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/

In opinion, if going to this extent on the harness, replace the main ground/earths, on my harness it was the Black with white tracer wires, with 14 gauge wiring on the main. The Red wire to the ignition, fuse box, and R/R were replaced with 14 gauge as well. The stator yellow wires on my harness were removed, there were two sets of connectors for some wierd reason, but I just decided to run the stator leads straight to the R/R. Additional grounding for back-up off the R/R as well.

This is on a 85 700E, other harnesses might be different.

In light, the Suzuki harness is pretty simple once unwraped. Looks daunting on the bike, but once off where it can be examined, pretty simple.

This is what the rear tail light and turn signals looked like after. I decided to go with all locking connectors. Requires changing the mate connectors as well.

I was short of the labeling of the connectors/wires, but after you do this, you will just know what wires go where.

[Jagir]

so....

not to hijack a thread or anything,
but,

If one started to pull their wiring harness apart and simply exposed all the wires and connectors and upon inspection, realized that the whole system looks pretty good:

• wires clean and not brittle
• connections seem fine
• a few wires that were questionable have been replaced
• a few connections that don't look stock (but how would I know) around the system, but they actually look pretty good - no shrink wrap, but really solid 2 into 1 crimps with a few layers of quality tape over them.

How deep would you tell this person to go?

• Replace everything anyway?
• If it aint broke don't fix it?
• Trace every wire from the front to the back and inspect everything and decide to replace wire by wire (and do all the connectors too)?
• test continuity in every wire?

Some history - seems like my system is undercharging, but until I have total faith in my wiring (and battery), I don't want to blame the stator. This problem is not a major one - a new battery every 2 years and: the turn signals don't blink unless the revs are high. Unless I'm above 3000 rpm, the signals are solid (when I have one switched on).

The truth: Some dark night there was a bit of fry in the system - can't remember what I was doing other than pulling the battery in or out and I think the positive off the battery somehow came in contact with the frame while it was still connected to the negative. I found some fried wires after that and replaced them. Also, there were one or two funny wiring repairs (see picture) from a PO, but most connections look as good or better that what I'm doing with heat shrink tubing and decent connectors.

According to the PO, the bike was always serviced at the Suzuki dealer and it really seems close to stock.


How deep?