crappy wiring methods on old CB/CL350s

W

Wyld Bill

Been Around the Block
Anyone else ever notice how lousy the wiring is on the old Hondas. I'm restoring an 1971 CB350 and just am beside myself. THere is a bunch of stuff that has no ground feeding it. I guess it is just supposed to be magicly grounded through painted pieces, bearings, etc. How does a starter button that grounds out to energize the starter work with no ground??? IT DOESNT!
 
THere is actually a wire that is on the bottom of the upper triple that runs from the gauges to the upper triple.
 
Both of my cb450s have it and I have. seen it on cb350s, cb550s and cb750s. Look on the bottom of the handle bar mounts under the upper triple. One of the nuts will have a wire under it. the other end attaches to the upper triple.
 
Well that explains a lot. Mine was missing which seems odd since the bike only had 1300 miles on it.

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honda's weren't usually known for bad electrical problems... the brits took the cake for that... usually some hack "mechanic" has futzed with it in it's life somewhere, so often the wiring is missing important bits that someone forgot to reinstall or removed thinking them redundant
 
I guess it's not just Hondas. I just never understood why on a small vehicle like a motorcycle,..where bad ground connections can cause so many problems, why not just run a ground wire to this stuff. I mean they started out on the right track with a main ground lead running in the harness but fell short of getting it out to where it needed to be.
Also I have two identical wires left over from my rebuild (speaking of hacks leaving stuff out) they are black with a tiny green band on the end on each one. They have aring conn. on one end and a male bullet on the other. I THINK they go to the rear blinkers for a ground but not 100% sure.
 
Roc City Cafe said:
honda's weren't usually known for bad electrical problems... the brits took the cake for that... usually some hack "mechanic" has futzed with it in it's life somewhere, so often the wiring is missing important bits that someone forgot to reinstall or removed thinking them redundant
Click to expand...
At least the Brits used the same color code for everything they built, regardless of make or model.
You are quite right that DPO is usually responsible for messy wiring. However, 40 year-old wiring will always give trouble.
Time for a new harness?
 
Components such as the signal lights and tail light are rubber mounted to reduce vibration to the bulb filaments, no direct contact with the frame, they have their own ground wire.
 
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