Well crap, need some electrical advice (near garage fire, pics included)

[a_bald_guy]

1973 Honda CB450
Purchased sans battery.


Damn it. Damn it.

Went to pick up a battery. Installed the bad boy.

Red to positive (three cables)

Black to negative (one cable)

Turn key then the tail light lit up, success. Then smoke started coming out of the area I am pointing too and the strong smell of frying electronics. SHIT!

So I rush to get the negative off. Meanwhile, the shrink wrapping on one of the positives is starting to melt.

SHIT!

Oh. Also, the negative gets REAL hot. Just an fyi.

So what the hell happened?

Am I that big of a noob?

And I'm guessing my electronics are now fried. Damn it.

I knew I should have just sent it to a mechanic and had it tuned up and gone through.



Three positive. One negative.

This area started smoking (where I'm pointing)

Showing the wire that began to melt

Notice that all three wires are red/positive. But only one melted...is that one a mislabled negative?


How pricey is this going to be? If it's not readily apparent, I know jack shit about wiring/electronics.

 

[a_bald_guy]

And yes, I was wearing flip flops in the garage.

 

[DoubleL3]

i think your best bet is to find a wiring diagram online, im sure there is one floating around here

the item you wear point to looks like the rectifier but i cant say for certain if you did accidentally hook a negative to the positive terminal it is possible that you screwed up your rectifier.

once you have the wiring diagram printed out start tracing all the wires and make sure there arent any shitty connections or shorts and that everything looks to be plugged into the right place.

also you said it didnt start smoking until AFTER you turned the key right? so there where no sparks or anything when you hooked up the battery

 

[a_bald_guy]

I ordered a new rectifier.

And thinking back. Yes it did spark. But just briefly.

Ugh.


I'll start digging for a wiring diagram.

I'm really thinking that the wire that melted is actually a ground wire.

 

[Flugtechnik]

It's probably a ground. See if you can trace where it is going. I have two ground wires on my bike. The main one that goes down to the engine mount, and a second one that goes into the wire harness. I have no idea what that second one is for as it's not on the diagram. Probably and addition from the PO.

Do you have a multimeter?

You can get two different wiring diagrams for the 450s here

 

[VonYinzer]

I ordered a new rectifier.

And thinking back. Yes it did spark. But just briefly.

Ugh.


I'll start digging for a wiring diagram.

I'm really thinking that the wire that melted is actually a ground wire.

www.freepdfmanual.com
itll take a sec to search around, but you can get a whole manual for free.

 

[a_bald_guy]

Yup I used that. But I still can't find what the extra wire comes from.

Boo.

 

[Flugtechnik]

Leave it disconnected and see what doesn't work. ;D

 

[goodfornothing]

I don't think there's supposed to be 3 positive wires connected to your + battery terminal. I have a cb450 as well, and you're supposed to connect one positive, and the other power cables are connected to the starter solenoid. Whatever you fried could have gotten too much power or something.