"Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

It's a sad day when your co-worker tells you he has one of your dream vintage bikes (RD350) in his garage....but that he's not willing to sell. But not willing to fix it up either...!!!

:o :(
 
cafe mike said:
I think the night shift (elfs) fixed it. Like I said I run the light on. No problem. It likes the excitement (pun intended)
Click to expand...

Haha tell them to come to my place. Hopefully I'll get it back rolling this weekend. Petcock just came in.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

So here's another electrical conundrum for you guys. Hope you all can help me out?

I went out to ride the bike around and flipped my toggle switch to the ON position. Usually what happens at this point is that the gauge lights come on, and the headlights are on/off depending on what position I left the switch in when I turned the bike off.

The gauge lights came on normally but when I flipped the headlight to low or high, nothing happens. The tail light only works when the headlights are off also.

So I opened up the headlight bucket where all my wiring is, poked around a little bit and didn't change anything. I flipped the toggle switch to check again and all of a sudden my headlights work again, but I didn't change anything. Then they stopped working again...and this cycle repeated a few times.

Finally during one of the cycles where everything was working, I fired the bike up. When off, I have 12.5V across the battery. At idle I have 11.9 and that's holds consistent all the way up to 4k or so. Seems like I'm charging OK. So I ride the bike about 3 miles no issue at all.

I come back hoping that the little elves that fixed Cafe Mike's bike fixed mine too. I went for outing number two about 4 hours later. Came out flipped the toggle and all lights work. I have about 12.5V before firing up, same as last time. I go ride for about 1000 yards and the bike dies. I coast back to the garage because luckily I was making a loop. Checked the lights. NOTHING. Read the voltage and it's 12.5 but lights don't work! Gauge lights don't even come on. It's acting dead as a doornail.

Hope you guys can offer some words if wisdom here. I have a note out to Matt and I'm sure he will have some tests for me to run.
 
This one of the most frustrating things I ever run into when working on electrics. Something doesn't work so you open everything up exposing the wiring harness, inspect it and change nothing, close it up and now it works fine. You have no idea what it was or what you did to fix but now it works. I hate when that happens, glad it works but would rather know what the issue was before it raises it's ugly head again.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

Hahaha thanks for the condolences :) Yeah I feel a rain dance coming on.

I'm thinking my next bike may have to be a dead nuts reliable stock newer bike that I can use to escape frustrations such as these :)
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

It's gotta be like a bad ground or something somewhere...or a wire is touching off on something metal or something like that. Idk.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer


xb33bsa said:
check the grounds check the fuse what kinda fuse flat ones?
Click to expand...

As far as checking the grounds, I use my test light right at the ground location right?

Also, yes a flat fuse. It's good.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

1sttimer said:
As far as checking the grounds, I use my test light right at the ground location right?

Also, yes a flat fuse. It's good.
Click to expand...
If your checking ground then you want to connect the alligator to the positive. Let's go back to basics. Electrons flow from positive to negative. The electrons already exist in the conductor. When you supply a load it moves the electrons through a conductor, and bounces an electron through.
Now laymans terms. Think of a water pipe. Flows the same (except electrons create friction. And friction is heat. Heat is fire. I don't mean to burst your pipes )Check valve in plumbing terms is a diode in electrical. Everything has a home run.
Electronics are no differnt. The size of the wire (same as plumbing) can only flow so much. You have two polaritys you are dealing with. Positive and negative. You have a floating ground somewhere. If you clip on positive you can check your bulbs let say on the positive side. So your basically checking to see the filimant has continuity. You can be picking up a floating ground.
Just think of electrons flowing like water. Let's call hot negative and cold positive.


Check your connections. For fit, did you use a dielectric grease?
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

1sttimer said:
So here's another electrical conundrum for you guys. Hope you all can help me out?

I went out to ride the bike around and flipped my toggle switch to the ON position. Usually what happens at this point is that the gauge lights come on, and the headlights are on/off depending on what position I left the switch in when I turned the bike off.

The gauge lights came on normally but when I flipped the headlight to low or high, nothing happens. The tail light only works when the headlights are off also.

So I opened up the headlight bucket where all my wiring is, poked around a little bit and didn't change anything. I flipped the toggle switch to check again and all of a sudden my headlights work again, but I didn't change anything. Then they stopped working again...and this cycle repeated a few times.

Finally during one of the cycles where everything was working, I fired the bike up. When off, I have 12.5V across the battery. At idle I have 11.9 and that's holds consistent all the way up to 4k or so. Seems like I'm charging OK. So I ride the bike about 3 miles no issue at all.

I come back hoping that the little elves that fixed Cafe Mike's bike fixed mine too. I went for outing number two about 4 hours later. Came out flipped the toggle and all lights work. I have about 12.5V before firing up, same as last time. I go ride for about 1000 yards and the bike dies. I coast back to the garage because luckily I was making a loop. Checked the lights. NOTHING. Read the voltage and it's 12.5 but lights don't work! Gauge lights don't even come on. It's acting dead as a doornail.

Hope you guys can offer some words if wisdom here. I have a note out to Matt and I'm sure he will have some tests for me to run.
Click to expand...

Make sure your frame is scratched free of powder coat and you bond the motor to frame. Frame back into harness.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

Mike, thanks for taking the time to write that explanation. That answers some questions and makes me raise a few more.

When you say floating ground, you're referring to a ground that isn't functioning for one reason or another correct? Or intermittently functioning in my case.

This would be a good time to bring up my method of grounding so far. My frame, when powder coated had random threaded recesses where things like the battery box and such were mounted to. Those spots were plugged off so that's bare metal on the threads. For my grounds I have ring terminals so I simply looped the ring terminal over a bolt and ran the bolt into the frame threads. I did not use dielectric grease on the threads though that is easy to take care of.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

1sttimer said:
Mike, thanks for taking the time to write that explanation. That answers some questions and makes me raise a few more.

When you say floating ground, you're referring to a ground that isn't functioning for one reason or another correct? Or intermittently functioning in my case.

This would be a good time to bring up my method of grounding so far. My frame, when powder coated had random threaded recesses where things like the battery box and such were mounted to. Those spots were plugged off so that's bare metal on the threads. For my grounds I have ring terminals so I simply looped the ring terminal over a bolt and ran the bolt into the frame threads. I did not use dielectric grease on the threads though that is easy to take care of.
Click to expand...
I treat grounds like a flesh wound, you clean up everything back to bare metal. Honda frame has nut inserts. And nut sets might be the same metal, but they are only bonded by friction. Given the age corrosion has set in and they are not making enough conduction. (Or intermittent due to frequency resonance ) floating grounds is the example I gave. You can produce enough ground out of the head lamp to keep the bike running. Soon as you apply positive to the bulb or swith that now losses what little ground it's pulling. Perfect example is guys who look for a ground to hook up a car stereo. The have the alligator clip to positive and probe a wire for a negative hook up. The factory parking light will show a ground at rest.. Lights off.Then they hook it up. And all goes well until night time. Glad I can help. But your helping me translate better! Win win
 
I use anything from a 90 degree pick, flat head with a surgeons skill of just a die grinder. Just make it clean and protect it with ky jelly. Do you have any ky or Vaseline jelly handy.
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

1sttimer said:
Mike, thanks for taking the time to write that explanation. That answers some questions and makes me raise a few more.

When you say floating ground, you're referring to a ground that isn't functioning for one reason or another correct? Or intermittently functioning in my case.

This would be a good time to bring up my method of grounding so far. My frame, when powder coated had random threaded recesses where things like the battery box and such were mounted to. Those spots were plugged off so that's bare metal on the threads. For my grounds I have ring terminals so I simply looped the ring terminal over a bolt and ran the bolt into the frame threads. I did not use dielectric grease on the threads though that is easy to take care of.
Click to expand...
Not for one reason or another. But because it's back feeding
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer

Alright so I checked all my grounds and the light lit up for each one. I also took a second look at the main fuse coming off of the positive and it's blown. Good thought XB! Guess I didn't look hard enough first time around.
 
glad t here :D i been out fer a short ride :D,short cause even in my gear i was freezin' :-[ :-\ frikkin krazy weather bro
yeah fuses are like sparkplugs easy to change out so's you can eliminate that possible fail
carry a small toolkit on these ole bikes with some o the stuff thats the way i do it
plugs fuses standard honda toolkit leatherman tape wire zips tieys a lighter etc
 
Re: "Patina" The 1973 CB175 Cafe Racer


xb33bsa said:
glad t here :D i been out fer a short ride :D,short cause even in my gear i was freezin' :-[ :-\ frikkin krazy weather bro
yeah fuses are like sparkplugs easy to change out so's you can eliminate that possible fail
carry a small toolkit on these ole bikes with some o the stuff thats the way i do it
plugs fuses standard honda toolkit leatherman tape wire zips tieys a lighter etc
Click to expand...

Fantastic idea man. I think I saw somebody on the site that makes tool bags of sorts. Might snag one just for that reason.
 
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