Been rebuilding this bike for a while. It will start in or out of gear. The dash lights are good (neutral, oil p) but don't come on. Generator light does work. Replaced the neutral and oil pressure switch and the short harness that connects where the buzzer is by the battery. Clutch switch shows continuity and doesn't affect starting. The wiring in the bucket has been checked many times. The main wire harness looks okayish. The wires i can see look clean and fresh but original. Could this be the diode behind the wiring block in the bucket?
Ray
And my tach just slightly bounces at 0
Check your clutch lever safety switch first. Those go out with frequency and your issue sounds like it needs some looking at.
Hope this helps.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
- Thanks Wobbly, that was some of it. I noted my clutch switch had continuity but i didn't check after install. The switch needs to be out of its pressed in position to work but now it will only start in neutral. I will get that straightened out. But the neutral n brake lights on the dash don't come on. Both switches are new and the undertank MC has been refurbished. And the electrical tach needle just wiggles. Devil's in the details.
- Ray
- Thanks Wobbly, that was some of it.
I need to leave some issues for other members to answer. ?
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
I opened up the speedo and checked all the bulbs and they are good. Connections clean. Put a bit of di ox id on the connections. Recleaned the grounds at the coils. Clutch switch now works as it should- needs to be pulled if in gear. I have continuity from the neutral/ oil switch (brown w black) at the battery area to the HL bucket. The clutch knows its in neutral. There has to be a mis connected wire in the bucket. A green maybe, there's several ways connect greens in there...
Ray
Put a bit of di ox id on the connections. Recleaned the grounds at the coils.
The Brown wire attached to the frame at the coils is more important than often suspected. Logical upgrades would be...
- Add a new Brown wire ~14" long (with 1/4" ID ring lugs at both ends) between the harness bonding point and the battery negative terminal.
- Move the large battery negative connection from the speedo drive location to a gearbox rear cover bolt location, This requires the making of a small stainless steel part to go into the well of the gearbox cover and a longer metric screw.
- Add No-Ox to all the new terminal locations the above changes add.
Hope this helps.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Sorry, i meant no ox not di ox. Like my grounds, my memory is compromised. I moved my battery ground from the fragile speedo bolt to the frame and cleaned and no ox ed the ground at the coils. Someone said that it appears the ground to the trio of non-working bulbs are not connected. There's 2 browns and a brown w blue that i had connected to my mc cap. I think both browns should be connected to the frame under the mc? The brown w blue goes to the cap. And not sure where the cap ground comes from. Maybe only 1 brown goes to frame and the other goes to mc cap??
Ray
Okay, i frame grounded the 2 solid browns and all that did was fix the green blinker light on the dash so that's working now. No neutral or oil light.
Sorry, but you are not thinking correctly. The Frame has nothing to do with anything electrical. Allow me to explain...
We describe the electrical path as a "circuit". That's the Latin word for "circle". The electricity is trying to make a circle. That is it's trying to get back to the place it came from, the source. The frame holds absolutely NO electrical source, so you are wasting your time and effort by connecting anything to the frame.
There are 2 sources of electrical power: the battery and the alternator. Period. That's it. So the electrical power is trying to get back to one of those 2 sources.... and NOT the frame.
If you understand those few sentences, then you understand why having a better "ground" connection between the battery and the engine is so important. This is why I suggested a much stronger (electrically speaking) location for mounting the battery cable. And I also suggested extending the BROWN harness ground wire back to the battery. These 2 steps eliminate the frame from the equation and provide for a better electrical system.
If connecting to the frame stopped your issue, then 1) you have not solved the problem, you have simply delayed it a short time, because 2) the problem is going to re-surface as soon as the frame starts to rust (which steel frames are highly likely to do) where you made your connections.
Just repeat after me.... "Frames carry engines; Copper carries electricity." Please trust me on this, the answer is as simple as that.
Hope this helps.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
PS. If your Brown wires are not a path back to the battery, then your issue is most likely in the Brown section of the multi-color wiring board in the headlamp. That's where several of the harness Returns (what most people call "ground") gather. Treat each of the terminals in the Brown area with No-Ox-Id and then plug the Brown wires back onto those terminals.
Brown "returns" gather in the lower RH corner
Hope this helps.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
The issue is the speedometer pod. I swapped in the pod from my other /7 and all the dash lights work and didn't on the good bike.
Katdash will fix all that!
Alright !
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Thank you for all your sage advice!
That's what we do. You're certainly welcome.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Advertisement
