June 2011 6

Ok guys this is what i have. I picked up a 1978 XS Eleven. the wiring was shot and some was missing. I plan to chop the frame and build a trike. I have a few of the parts for the bike. I rewired some of it and can get it to turn over i just can’t get any spark out of the coils. I’m not a bike mechanic by any means. I just need help or a simplified wiring diagram just to get the bike to run. Can anyone help. I like Evans rewire on a page i found but i don’t know what he got rid of to make the bike run without half of the electrical. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

If there is no spark at the plugs have you verified that the coils, stator, regulator, rectifier, and TCI init are connected properly based on the XS1100 wiring diagram? Without any of those pieces the XS11 won’t fire up.

I have an 82 Nighthawk 450 that I’m in the process of sprucing up. The headers have some surface corrosion and I’d like to put some high temp paint on them. However, they’re stuck. I’ve removed the top bolts as well as the bottom clamps but they refuse to budge. I’d rather not paint them while they’re on the bike. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Running the bike to head up the headers is a great idea.

if you’re positive you’ve removed all the necessary bolts that hold the headers and entire exhaust affixed to the bike, then just give it a good ‘twack’. Kick on the rear of the mufflers a bit to pop the headers forward – or pull the muffers/cummulator off completely and work on the headers by themselves.

I’ve got an 89 kawi kz1000p. I want to get rid of 90% of the wiring but I’m not sure what I can get rid of. Every time I look at the stock diagram I go cross eyed. All I want on it is headlight, taillight, the stock keyed ignition, spark and I want it to charge the battery. Does anyone have a diagram for this? If not how can I get one?

Reader Notes:
There are quite a few ‘simple motorcycle wiring’ diagrams around the web. Shouldn’t be too hard to dig one up via Google search. Once you get there though you may realize that ripping it out and starting over can be painful. Between ‘electrical/re-wiring’ projects and ‘wanted to tune/clean my carb’ projects there are a lot of bikes that sit in garages for a very long time and end up on craigslist so be sure to measure twice and cut once when you get it all planned out.

My Notes:
My diagrams are about as simple and generic as you’re going to get. If you want to customize your wiring you’ll just need a voltmeter and a lot of patience. Work on one part at a time and find the wires that power it. http://cycles.evanfell.com/2010/03/simp … fe-racers/

However – The Kawasaki KZ1000 police bikes are awesome machines. I wouldn’t cut the lights off those for any reason, it’ll lose all it’s cool factor.

My ’78 Honda 750K has been in the shop for 3 weeks waiting on a bypass oil line to feed one side of the engine. Some of the oil lines are corroded and one side is not getting oil. My mechanic says this is not a common procedure and only a friend of his has done it. That’s who I’m waiting on, his friend.  Three weeks now.

Anyone familiar with this procedure and know if it’s common? I live in Miami, looking to take it elsewhere and get it done already.

Thanks for any info.  George

He’s right, it’s not a common procedure. In fact I don’t think I’ve heard of it needing to be done. I can imagine though if you got some water in your oil and let it sit it could definitely corrode things enough to cause such a problem. There could be other sources of the problem as well. You should just do the work yourself – that is what I ALWAYS advocate. No one touches my bikes except me!

I have a vstar 1100 that kept burning head lights and at the same time the battery would not hold a charge.
Evan sugested that the problem might be the battery , if the battery was bad enough it would allow the charging system to over charge and that would burn lights. so i went out a got a new battery(W-Mart)
and that seemed to fix it but it did not last.After three or four weeks the battery stared to not hold a charge.
I now have a second new battery(EXITE) and want to make sure it keeps on running.
I charged the new battery for ten hours at one amp,put in the bike and started the bike.
After the bike stared i checked the charging and it showed 17volts so i turned the bike off( i thuoght that was to high) so i started and stopped the bike several times over a few hours and checked the charge rate and it was different every time but allways over 14 volts, is that normal or does it sound like a rectifier.

17 volts is WAY too high. 14v at higher RPMs isn’t uncommon, but at an idle it is a little more than expected.  Rectifier is a likely culprit and is the first thing I would investigate and replace.