Wiring nightmare...

[Stribo]

Ok i have been doing this old cb360 up. When i purchased the old girl she was disassembled. So i have been hooking up the old wiring harness. I have ditched the original headlight bracket and have some nice after market crome ears. Also have an after market single speedo.The originals where toast. I had everything working fine all lights indicators and nice spark at the point etc. So i started her up and had a spin around the backyard. It was extremely gutless.Couldn't pull the skin of a custard. Now that could be bad timing or carby issue as i haven't really looked into those bits. Now all of a sudden i'm blowing the main fuse when i turn the headlight on . Seems like a short somewhere which i've been looking for all freekin day.grrrrrr...

Ok questions .

There is a green wire about in line with the right coil with a eye terminal on it that hang out of the main harness. Sould this go to ground? Position looks like it should go on the rear mounting bolt of the coil. With it not grounded all the indicator lights have a dull glow and the headlight does not come on. With it grounded the headlight and indicators function untill the fine pieces of steel wool that i am using for a main fuse burns up.
Also when its not grounded it lights up the test light.But i can't find where its getting power/short...
Also when the run switch is in the start position the main fuse gets hot but doesn't blow and there is power to the coils and points.
I also can't find any other wires getting warm.

On the wiring diagram in the manual i see no ground on any solid green wires

Yet on this cb350 diagram it does...

Also inside the headlight bucket on the mounting bolt there are wires coming from each nut. They make no difference connected or not i guess because the front indicator stalks are earthing through the ears/forks.
I have disconected all lights and reconected one by one to no avail even when they are all disconected that green wire powers up.
Would a recifier or voltage regulator give these symptoms? I had a spare VR and tried that but no difference.

Sooo any electro gurus have any thoughts on this. This is driving me nuts.. :'(

 

[Reinhard]

the green wire goes on the bolt for the coils. It is indeed a ground. The two nuts with the green wires are for the headlight ground. The bolts for the headlight screw into them then they are connected to the green wire coming into the headlight. The body of the coils ground them to the frame- make sure they are contacting clean metal, bare is best.

The main fuse is getting hot because it has too much resistance,probably because you're using steel wool for a fuse. I'd check all the connections on the hot side AND ground side and make sure they are tight and clean.

Get a set of fuses before your bike goes up in smoke, make sure everything that has a ground is grounded. On most of my bikes I have more than one ground. Redundancy in grounding can never hurt.

I would also suggest a multi-meter and some test leads. And until you get it sorted I wouldn't leave the battery hooked up when you aren't working on it.

 

[VonYinzer]

Green is pretty much always ground on Hondas. Use the search function, theres a nice color 360 wiring diagram floating around the site somewhere.

 

[Stribo]

Yep i think your right about the steel wool. Just those damn little fuses are so expensive when you start popping a dozen or so. I did find a short in the left bar switch where it was pinched. I had dremmeled the hole out but not quite enough. So now the fuse(steel wool ) just gets slowly hot and not burn up immediatly. There was also some bare wire in the rear indicators.i have taped it up.Re-did the timing and adjusted mixture. Veola! Burnouts in the backyard with heaps of grunt!! Have a massive grin on my face right now!
So a few more things to tidy up around the bike and i should be ready for Rego soon.
Thanks for your help. Very appreciated.
Oh about that green wire. With it not earthed ,ignition on and i have a test light from the negative battery terminal to the green wire,it lights up.Would this be correct? When earthed the light goes out.
Also when its not earthed and i turn the headlights on all the indicators glow dull and no headlight.Would this indicate a short? When earthed they function normaly.
The headlight now earths through the forks and functions correctly without those wires attatched to anything. I thimk the OEM headlight frame was isolated from the frame with rubber mounts? Correct?
Thanks again.

 

[DrJ]

It's an extraneous ground connection that doesn't need to go anywhere. The CB350 also has one.