Con"fuse"ed

h2okettle · Post by **h2okettle** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:48 pm

I have used that same two prong automotive fuse holder for years in my GT.. It is much nicer than the original glass fuse.. But I had a situaton yesterday, that made me "think".. (Doing this gives me headaches)

Anyway, I was turning left at a red light when the bike moved about 10 feet and shut off.. I coasted to the side of the road and onto the sidewalk.. When I took off the side cover I found the fuse was blown.. So I took a piece of wire to use as a tester before I used my spare fuse.. Well, I disconnected any extras on the battery and then used the wire to jump across the fuse holder.. It sparked like a dead short.. So I continued looking.. I pulled the right cover off thats over the oil tank and followed the wire from the rear brake switch up the frame.. I saw a small area that the insulation had chaffed and saw bare wire showing. I layed it away from the frame and tested my wire again and this time no spark.. So I then put in the new fuse and all was good again.. I then went home and fixed the wire ..
My point is if I had been running through Atlanta traffic or any congested area at 70+mph and this happened, there is little chance of getting off the road if your in the middle lane and is very likely you could possibly end up as a hood ornament on someones car/truck... Soooooo, my next question is, are there any electrical folks here that could tell me how to wire my ignition switch separately from the lights?? This way if there was a light shorted out it would not shut down the whole bike..
Thanks for your help

Allen......Still wasting CCI

jkevinlilly · Post by **jkevinlilly** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:09 pm

Maybe this is a stupid question.

Why in the hell would anybody be in the middle lane of traffic around Atlanta on a motorcycle??:^)

But I am interested in the answer to Allen's question.

Kevin

tz375 · Post by **tz375** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:03 pm

Allen,

I'm not electrical at all, but I have managed to re-wire a couple of bikes including a GT750 from scratch.

Let's deal with teh brake light first. that has an orange lead which is switched 12v and it is hot when the ignition is "on" and it has to be that way.

The other lights are designed for the US market to be "ON" all the time, but other markets have a third switch in the left switch cluster to turn lights OFF and ON. The US DOT took away that freedom of choice years ago, and many other countries have followed suit.

The way the wiring is set up, the orange (switched 12V) comes out of teh main ignition switch and splits up for different circuits. One lead goes through the headlamp connectors and out to the left switch block. there it goes to either dip or main beams via the dipswitch.

What you need is an extra switch in the Orange lead into that left switchblock. The simple way would be to cut the lead on the main loom side of the appropriate connector and take it to a switch and bring the other side of the switch back to that connector.

Another way is to buy a UK left bar switch which already has that "extra" ON-OFF switch built in.

teazer

Suzukidave · Post by **Suzukidave** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:49 pm

Or add more fuses in the system that could blow before it affects the rest of the system .. i am sure your modern bikes have a fuse " box" that follows this idea .

advant63 · Post by **advant63** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:54 pm

. Soooooo, my next question is, are there any electrical folks here that could tell me how to wire my ignition switch separately from the lights?? This way if there was a light shorted out it would not shut down the whole bike..

allen,
to get the ignition the way you want it you'll have to run a separate wire from battery pos. ,through a fuse then a switch and then feed that switched power to the three orange wires that feed the coils. you will have to remove the power (orange) wires from the six pin connector of the points sub harness and substitute your new source of power. it will be totally manual but independent of the main fuse.
to isolate the lights (like your posted question) you would have to interrupt the grey wire between the ign. sw. and light switch and feed your new power source to that grey wire going to the switch.
you'll have to remember to turn them on and off as required.

tz375 · Post by **tz375** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:44 pm

Are you 100% sure about that?

The gray wire is connected to the brown (tail lamp) when in the ON position, but it is not switched 12V.

The Gray lead carries power out from the light switch to the Gauge lights etc. Power IN to the light switch is Orange.

So, when the main switch is ON, power comes from the orange to the light switch to the Gray to instrument lights and to the main switch to the tail light (Brown).

Post by **Suzsmokeyallan** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:03 am

Richard on the buffalo the light switch slider is merely a block that stops the slider from moving. If you remove it and cut off the protusion you can manually turn the lights off and on as they originally were designed.
Daves idea is best where you apply a set of inline fuses into the appropriate systems to cover certain sections of the lighting circuit.
You may have to add about three or four but its going to be neater and simpler to do this.

tz375 · Post by **tz375** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:25 am

Allan,

That's interesting. I hadn't looked at a left switch that closely. In fact the UK market switch has an extra switch and if you look at the wiring diagrams, it shows that.

I found a new one on ebay but decided that I was rewiring anyway, and had enough GSXR switches to use up. For Allen, that is one way to do what he asked.

I agree that Dave's suggestion makes most sense. In many ways it is a superior redesign because it's possible to seperate out different circuits, though there's still no guarantee that a short on a 30 year old wiring loom won't still cause a problem.

I was simply answering the question that was asked.

h2okettle · Post by **h2okettle** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:57 am

jkevinlilly wrote:Maybe this is a stupid question.

Why in the hell would anybody be in the middle lane of traffic around Atlanta on a motorcycle??:^)

But I am interested in the answer to Allen's question.

Kevin

Hi Kevin... I mostly run in the far left lane, as its faster usually.. When its time to find the exit and you are merging to the right side, its normally an adventure/thrill/white knuckle, lane change...

My thought/fear was what if this would have happened during one of the merging adventures....... Once you start to slow down when the bike quits you are gonna get run over... And thats gonna mess up your whole day, plus your gonna be late getting to Deals Gap..

This just so happened close to home and on a not too busy intersection, leaving room for error...This time.... I have a lot of faith in my bike, but to me this was an eye opener and made me think, that it could happen anytime as the bike is kinda old, like me... The only other major let down I have had on the GT was when the chain masterlink clip broke in half at 3am in the morning on an iron butt ride to Pennslyvania with my wife on the back.. Lucky for me a $.25 cent quarter and a tube of RTV plugged the hole in the engine so I could put oil back in to ride back to Florida.. This is why I run a riveted masterlink chain now..... This is not bad for putting 140K miles on the GTs in the last 4 years... I still like (a lot) riding the GT, but this single fuse idea is a little scary, knowing that a shorted tail light wire will shut the whole operation down...
I did talk with Ed Zunz (triple Ed) down in Sarasota and he offered to help me wire this setup to my bike.... It does not sound hard at all, but this gives me a reason (I don't need one really) to go waste a quart of CCI (900 miles round trip)....
Thank you all for your help, I do appreciate it...

Allen....... Heavy smoker..... GT brand !!

Post by **Suzsmokeyallan** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:23 am

Richard ive seen the (alteration) on buffalo light switches for the 74 and on. Even the ones in Canada have the same configuration.
If you remove the little screw and take off the black immovable slider piece you'll see how they did it so it cant be turned off.
Allen you really cant blame the bike for the short as the wiring does not have to be old to rub through, just route it badly or have a sharp hidden edge somewhere on ANY bike and there you go,, blow fuse.
It happened to me on the Bandit last summer in Florida, a rub through to the main ignition power circuit of the harness, and under the tank of all places.

tz375 · Post by **tz375** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:39 pm

Allan, as an interesting aside, when i wired up the Phat Trakka, I used a pair of lamps and then wired them up with a pair of relays from a late model Yamaha YZR R1/R2. They cost about $20 for the front wiring harness including the relays and their connector blocks. It's the gauge/headlight harness ad is easily de-constructed to get the good parts out.

Now there is very little current through the stwitchblock, and full power to the lights.

It has a rocker type switch and as it rocks from dip to main, it momentarily allows both to be ON. I guess that was to avoid the possibility of a momentary darkness between positions.

Post by **Suzsmokeyallan** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:57 pm

Richard id think its more of a transition of one relay tripping in before the other trips out since the switch has a partial overlap.
The thing is that these old bikes were built with simplicity in mind so they got heavy duty contacts and such which has allowed the parts to last so long.
The relays for items like headlamps are better since it removes the high current load off the actual switch contacts, but can you imagine the cost of adding all those extra parts back in the 70s, not to mention the size of those relays from that time period.

advant63 · Post by **advant63** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:55 pm

Are you 100% sure about that?

The gray wire is connected to the brown (tail lamp) when in the ON position, but it is not switched 12V.

The Gray lead carries power out from the light switch to the Gauge lights etc. Power IN to the light switch is Orange.

So, when the main switch is ON, power comes from the orange to the light switch to the Gray to instrument lights and to the main switch to the tail light (Brown).

teazer, that light wiring would bypass the ig sw and light on/off switch giving you headlights hi and lo and dash lights but not a tail. thanks for bringing that to my attention.

fusing and switching the coils independently would be the answer to allens scenario.

tz375 · Post by **tz375** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:52 pm

Seems we all agree that Mr Allen might like to consider a more comprehensive solution that includes more fuses and separate circuits.