Montreal Manchild with an '81 Honda CB750K

11 years ago I dragged the missus to the 10,000 Days tour and 11 years later I dragged her once again. I freaked out, she dug the visuals. And woke up with a headache a mile wide and that amazing ringing in my ears. And a t-shirt that actually fit this time. Good signs...

Check out the setlist (unless you want to be very, very, happily surprised when you go see them...http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/tool/2017/centre-bell-montreal-qc-canada-63e7163b.html)

F*ck yeah! Wish I was going again tonight...
 
Airbox and carbs now fully installed, hopefully later today I'll reinstall the battery housing and hook the rest of the harness up. Will be mounting the new speedo and tach gauges but have absolutely no idea how to go about wiring them up. Like, zero. See plenty of homework on my horizon...

Pissing down here in MTL. So much for summer. Took the Sportster out for a ride on the weekend - when we changed the rear tire we found that the bearing races were all shot and had caused some damage to the hub itself. Worked out a fix and now she runs so much smoother, will order a new wheel none the less. Man this thing is great, tons of fun, love the riding position and faster than a fart in a fan factory.
 
Jim, one wire at a time and follow the diagram for the bike and the instructions on the guages, if they have them LOL. It isn't hard. I wired in a digital tach speedo combo gauge from China with shit instructions. I basically had to find the ground, then add power to the different wires to see what lit up. The only good part of the instructions was how to mount the magnet and sensor and how to put wheel size in for it to calculate speed.
 
Dude I've wired a plug at home and screwed in a few light bulbs in the living room but as far as my electrical career goes, that's about it. I have no idea where to start! Do I need to solder stuff? I bought the speedo and tach from DCC, the wiring has no connectors on them. All the stock wiring on my bike has those blocky connectors. What's the best way to hook them up?

Total rookie here. Like, I redefine the term rookie. I make rookies look like rocket scientists.
 
Ha, gotcha, it isn't really bad, If I was closer I'd just come over and help and you could supply the beer. Solder and shrink is good for connections you don't need to remove but you are best served to get some good crimpers and a connector kit and or bullet connectors. Vintage connections makes excellent crimpers and sell connector kits. I did my GL with the auto connectors from CT because that was all I had time to use. I am now redoing it all with the vintage connectors stuff. It costs 2x as much but worth every penny as it matches the OEM perfectly. You can order direct from them or Dime City has it. I got my crimper from DCC and one of the connector kits, then went straight to Vintage for another that DCC didn't carry.
 
I'll pay your train fare and keep you in Creemore Springs every step of the way...

Thanks man, so I should pick up a kit from Vintage Connections? Just had a look at their site and have read terms like "bullet connectors", "spade connectors" and "latching housings" for the first time in my life. Looking at what I have on my OEM harness, looks like everything ends in a latched housing. Question is, what kit do I need - and which connectors do I need to use - to join the wires on the new DCC gauges (which have no connectors on them) into the latched housings on my OEM harness?
 
To actually help a bit, here's how to handle at least the easy bits like idiot lights. The gauge for DCC should have a wiring diagram, so the best way to do it is to get a set of bullets that match OEM(Vintage Connectors) . Find the ground wire for the gauge, find the ground for the bikes old gauge, check the bullet and put the opposite if male on bike put a female on the gauge or vice versa and plug it in. Then find oil light wire, find same one on bike, install a bullet on the gauge wire and connect. then repeat for high beam, neutral, blinker indicators and back ground lighting. That's most of it. Now are the ones you bought 100% digital or do they use the old cables for the speedo drive and tach drive. if cable you are done once the lights are connected and you just pull the cable from the old and screw into new. If they are digital you will need to tap into the coil wires for the tach and mount a magnet and sensor to the front wheel for the speedo, and also find a switched power lead for the speedo more than likely.
 
The Jimbonaut said:
I'll pay your train fare and keep you in Creemore Springs every step of the way...

Thanks man, so I should pick up a kit from Vintage Connections? Just had a look at their site and have read terms like "bullet connectors", "spade connectors" and "latching housings" for the first time in my life. Looking at what I have on my OEM harness, looks like everything ends in a latched housing. Question is, what kit do I need - and which connectors do I need to use - to join the wires on the new DCC gauges (which have no connectors on them) into the latched housings on my OEM harness?
Click to expand...


Just saw this. I was typing the above. your old Gauges should be bullets and a few latchs maybe. I'll check BB to see what the fiche shows and try and suggest the best connectors to get you going.
 
Some of the DCC speedos (the one i used on the 360) had really small gauge wire, so your standard 16ga connectors don't really work on them. I like to strip back 1/2" of wire and then double it up to give the crimp connection more meat to grab.
 
OK the factory connection for the gauges and idiot lights looks like a latching connector. So vintage connectors would have the same one if you want to plug right in. all you need to do is read the wiring diagram and match the right wires for the gauges to the harness.
 
advCo said:
Some of the DCC speedos (the one i used on the 360) had really small gauge wire, so your standard 16ga connectors don't really work on them. I like to strip back 1/2" of wire and then double it up to give the crimp connection more meat to grab.
Click to expand...
yep or solder on a larger gauge wire, then shrink that and crimp the spade to the larger wire.
 
The other option is get a soldring iron and heat shrink, cut the plug off on the old gauges if you are never going to reuse them and then solder and shrink the DCC wires to the oem that correspond and that is the easiest and cheapest solution.

1732-050617142125.jpeg
 
Maritime said:
The other option is get a soldring iron and heat shrink, cut the plug off on the old gauges if you are never going to reuse them and then solder and shrink the DCC wires to the oem that correspond and that is the easiest and cheapest solution.
Click to expand...

Now we're talking...
 
Hhmmmm, haven't got very far with the wiring at all. Don't think I'm gonna cut the OEM plug. Here's the thing - there are a bunch of colour-coded wires on the new gauges for each idiot light (one +ve and the other -ve). How do I know which wire corresponds to it's counterpart on the OEM female plug? I mean I've looked at the Clymers wiring diagrams which are all fine and dandy but I could be looking at cuneiform. Unless I'm missing something they don't show this kind of detail.
 
Hey Maritime, just trying to clarify this a little - "Find the ground wire for the gauge, find the ground for the bikes old gauge, check the bullet and put the opposite if male on bike put a female on the gauge or vice versa and plug it in. Then find oil light wire, find same one on bike, install a bullet on the gauge wire and connect. then repeat for high beam, neutral, blinker indicators and back ground lighting"

How do I find each wire? And how do I find out which one does what? How do I find the ground wire for example? I know that must sound proper amateur, I just don't know where to start. Man I sound stupid, even to myself!
 
there is usually one ground for the gauge then all the + wires. so you ground the one and then connect the + to all the corresponding + wires from the harness. Do you have the gauge instructons or wire colour list?
 
I do, yeah (I found this on the internet but I'm fairly sure it's the same diagram for my gauges) -



There's no mention of a ground wire on the diagram, and every wire is either + or -

By the way, I cheaped out on the connectors. Went to CT and found some male connectors (flat type things) that I needed to trim down to fit into the female connectors inside the OEM connector housing block (whatever those things are called - there's one on the end of the cable coming out from the OEM gauge cluster photo you posted a while back)
 
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