Bought this bike a few years ago because I needed parts (namely a title) for another project. It ran and I overpaid for it because I hadn't seen any others for sale and had been looking for about a year. When I say ran, I mean that I test rode it around town and it was OK. Once I got it home and took it out on the freeway, well that was another story. Could nurse it up to about 60 mph. Dogged out completely above 7,500 rpm. Pulled the carbs and checked the jets and they looked like the right ones so was thinking at that point that the issues was the balancing of the carbs, but since I only wanted the title, I didn't actually care.

Shortly thereafter I got a wreck with a clean title for about 1/8 the price of this bike. That makes this redundant but of course, in the meantime it had stopped running completely. Sitting too long was my best guess. So off came the carbs since it's easier to sell a running bike. Cleaned them out a couple times (if you've done it you know how it goes), tested the fuel pump and fuel filter and both seemed OK. Finally today put it back together and fired it up. It now will go to 75 mph on the freeway but no power to speak of over about 7,500 rpm. I'm assuming that I now have clean carbs which gained me 15 mph but that whatever issue caused it to dog out at the top end is still there.

However, I can't leave well enough alone. Obsessive compulsive disorder, no matter how minor, can be a curse.

There was a mess of wiring. The fan has to be turned on and off with a switch (that is failing); the headlight is turned on and off with a switch that is wired in with speaker wire and only has high beam; and there is a wire running from the battery to the ignition switch and bypassing the red power wire.




Started with the headlight cause that should be simple and straight-forward. Checked continuity and power to the headlight wires and everything seemed fine except that the Blue/White wire going to the dimmer switch has no power. Instead of just jumper-ing power to that switch, some previous owner bypassed the whole dimmer switch. Should be an easy fix. If I can't figure out why there is no power, I will jumper directly to that power wire and the lights, dimmer, and hi beam indicator will work properly again. As a bonus, the giant bundle of speaker wire with which the previous owner "fixed" the headlights will be gone, as will the excess switch on the dash.




Next problem to tackle, the jumper wire to ignition. It would appear that the red power wire runs through the starter relay and then directly to the ignition switch. I have to pull the tank back off to check the continuity of the original wire but I'd be willing to bet that the wire itself is fine and it just isn't being fed by the starter relay. We shall see. Might need a new relay.

After that, the fan. Fan relay? I might actually have one of those from the second bike I bought. I'll have to check the parts I tucked away for later.

It will still, after all this, be a giant pile of junk but it will be a running (even if poorly) giant pile and it won't have stray bundles of garbage wiring running here and there. And the repairs that it does have, well they will be done properly.

And then I will sell it. And I won't feel any sense of guilt that I am dumping a mess (or at least as much a mess) on someone's lap.

 

You're a good guy to go to this trouble.

Most people would just try to palm it off on someone else.

 

I am particularly fond of the custom speaker wire modification. It's not every rider who can say they have that mod.

 

Part OCD (it really bothers me), part self interest (easier to sell if I don't have to try to explain the speaker wire). The good news, to me, is that it appears to be such an easy fix. I am going to trace the power wire back to see if I can figure out why it isn't getting power, but if that turns out to be too complicated I do a simpler version of the original hacker's wiring and just feed power directly to the headlight wire. Hopefully ditto with the main power feed.

The reality is also that I sort of enjoy this type of wiring problems. Tracing wiring using wiring diagrams and trying to figure out where the break is can be rewarding. Sometimes, of course, you discover that the break is buried inside a harness and then you bypass but sometimes you get lucky.

 

Had a customer bring his bike into the Harley shop with some electrical issues years ago and half the wires on the bike and been replaced with brown speaker wire. Pointed it out to the service manager and he just sighed and said "fix it". Good customer, just a bit cheap sometimes. Amazing what people will do without forethought to the future.

 

Speaker wire gone. Had to jumper the blue/white wire using a small piece of blue/white wire and two Scotchlock connectors. Took power from the same blue/yellow wire that the previous owner had used, just a lot cleaner. The high/low beam switch now works but of course the headlight is on when the ignition is one. Not sure why the wire didn't have power as it is supposed to come straight from the right side controls and the start/run switch. That one appears to have power, but the wire that runs across disappears into a big harness and I didn't really want to tear apart the whole harness. I may redo it by splicing from the correct wire as I'm not sure whether the headlight will keep the bike from starting properly . Harley Davidsons (of which I am a 20 year professional mechanic) don't have the headlight cutout for starting at all. Never have.

Discovered that the fan thermostatic switch has gone bad. Posted up asking for information on a new one (0.99 seems awful cheap on ebay) but everything else seems to work fine so I'm not sure why the previous owner wouldn't have just replaced the dang switch instead of spending significant time and energy wiring in a manual switch.

Still not sure on wire from battery to ignition switch. Reading the manual there is a test procedure for starter relay switch which I need to do but ran out of time. The 30A fuse was out so it was definitely intentional to pull the fuse, remove power from the red wire, provide power with a bypass wire. I just don't know why. Hopefully my garage won't burn down overnight now that I've put the 30A fuse back in.

 

Wiring has always been a bit of a mystery to me, black art.

Bit of a worry!

 

The scotchlock is just temporary, until you are sure its fixed, yes?

 

Sort of, maybe. I need power to the headlights. The break, if there is one, is buried inside the main wiring harness somewhere. I have no intention of pulling the main harness part, therefore ...

That being said, I know that Scotchlocks are an inelegant solution, but considering that the previous owners version of "fix" was to dig a big hole in the wiring insulation, jam another wire through the hole, twist it around, and then wrap a bunch of electrical tape around it, two snap on connectors, one at each end of a small jumper wire, is positively Edisonian.

 

Sigh. Starter relay came in and I swapped it out today. The battery, however, was dead. Charged it up and the bike fired right up. I did discover that it ran the same whether or not I had a jumper wire to the battery so that is a bonus. I am also going to jumper the headlight to the start switch (yes, using Scotch-locks Chillit :-) just to see if the headlight then goes out during starting now that I have replaced the starter relay. However ...

Two trips to the grocery store and it barely made it home from the second so probably need a charging system. Given that I just want this thing to go away, not sure of the value of a charging system (not price, but value). Jumped on it with a voltmeter and discovered that it idles at 14.1VDC and when I give it throttle it drops to 13.5VDC. Since I rode it 50 miles when I first got it running that suggests what to me? That the charging system just went out as it should have been working properly before. OTOH I was riding at higher RPM and only started it once, when I left, so maybe it just is charging enough to keep going so long as you don't overload the charging system.

Thermostatic fan switch hasn't arrived yet so I still have a switch to the fan and I also noticed that the temp gauge doesn't rise much above C so maybe it needs a switch for that also.

Again, just want it to go away, but how much harder to sell when nothing works properly.

Sigh.