Look at the photo, it shows a yellow wire with the sheathing rubbed away until the wires are exposed, the other ones with the black areas are where its rubbing away the insulation soon to follow suit and expose the wires.
These came off of my Calgary based 76 Buffalo, its the short wires that run from the alternator socket into the rectifier socket on the electrical board.
This area was something I was meaning to get around to in my rolling restoration for this bike, but it got put off last year. Suspicions were on the cards since then as I'd had a few blips on the screen during last summers ride, a left cylinder dropping out with backfires and other little things hinting something was up electrically.
So what was happening behind there hidden out of view? the wires behind the panel had become fixed onto the rear inner fender from previous owners 'adjusting' them and were quietly rubbing away on the metal.
The points wire for the left cylinder was also in the same mess and from what I could see these wires had been so for a very long time.
The fender was actually etched deeply where the wires were constantly arcing into the metal and I'm surprised the whole thing didn't go up in a fireball given how much old oil was behind there on them.
The LH points would short to ground and drop the cylinder, then it would temporarily fix itself, backfire then come to life again as it did a few times on last years trip, but the alternator was surely going to burn up eventually, being repeatedly shorted directly to ground on this phase was not a healthy situation..
I replaced the wires, tidied it all up and such like for now, but I plan to do some harness update work in that area when I go back to swap out the metal inner fender for a restored one.
I only have to wait till next summer to do it so I have some time to get all the required items ready.
The bottom line here is never take anything for granted, always visually check things over for your own safety and peace of mind.
