Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech I Need Help.......Wiring thru bars problem !

OK guys - I need your help. I got my new bars and redid the wiring this weekend. Got it all done much easier than first time (or so it appeared). Looks really sweet. I put it all back together and tested everything. Turn signals…left, right, back, front – yes. Brake lights – front, rear – yes. Clutch light, oil light, horn – yes. Tach, speedo – yes. License plate light – yes.

Head light…nothing at all also no hi/lo beam light. Arse ! Start up……click…nothing. Bollocks ! I check fuses and the 10 amp (if I remember correctly) for the hi/low beam switch is blown and keeps blowing every time I switch ignition on. All other fuses are fine. Try start again…click...nothing.

My quick diagnosis I managed to do before having to leave the garage and go in the house lest I should kill someone……I may have wires mixed up for starter and hi/lo beam ? Would that cause these symptoms ???? I look at the wiring diagrams in my Haynes and I have to admit I find it hard to follow them in any way to help me with this. All I know is I have about 8 wires clutch side, 6 throttle side – spliced and re-connected in the headlight bucket but the wring diagrams obviously have much more detail and connect the entire system and it looses me.

Any help, advice, direction, best guesses, fingers to the wind….greatly appreciated.

Hmmm... The headlights are always on, so the hi lo beam does always have juice when the key is on. If that were connected to the start button instead, when you turn the key on you would be supplying the start button with power and shorting the circuit at the fuse. It does sound possible that it is just a boo boo on the 2 connections.
You could use the ohms or buzzer of a multimeter to see if the start button connection inside the signal housing is in fact the same wire on the plug side. This would work for the High/Low beam as well(nice easy test). There are very small numbers on the "inside headlight" connector that designate the wires. #1, #3, #6 and #8 are high/low beam and #11 and #12 are start button. I would check the start buttons contacts to the #11 and #12 pins on the plug first, if one doesnt connect you have found the culprit.
Other than that, is you splicing at all inside the bars? If so, I think you know where I'm goin' with that. (Possible shorting together)

Thanks man. This is a great start. I'm very confident on my splicing - was very careful, good soldering and shrink wrap and very careful pulling through with no noticeable issues. So wires are numbered at the connectors ?? I'll check that. Do you know which wire colors I might have mixed up ? I know the diagrams give us the colors but I can’t figure it out.

Yes, the connector is numbered. They are very small bumps, but they are numbers.
(carefull, you might get a headache reading them )
The (2) black with red dashes are the 2 start button wires, the #11 wire goes to the (white/red dashes) headlight cut-out relay, the #12 goes to the (green/red dashes) ground circuit. This leads me to believe it may be the #11 wire mismatched with one of the headlight wires (to be determined).

Thanks again buddy - really appreciated. I'll check it out and be back for more I'm sure.

Make sure you installed the snap-together connectors with the right orientation. I had mine out, and reversed the two connectors inside. This did many weird things to the bike, including blowing my fuse. The connectors are keyed alike so very easy to do. Fortunately, I had marked mine on a previous job or I'd still be searching.
Related Thread

You know.....I'm in work at the moment so I can't go look but you might be on to something. I too am as stupid as you so may well have them switched around. I remember having finished everything, feeling good about myself - you know ? Then when it came to putting the 2 connectors back, I had marked them but seemed to have lost track of the marking somehow. But I thought one was black/black and one was white/white ? How could i get that mixed up. Now reading your thread it appears that's not the case. Do you think that even though my 'symptoms' are different from yours I might have the same problem ? We'll find out I guess. Thanks a lot for the tip man and your previous thread is also very useful. Cheers.

A couple things...
The first time I ever dove into the headlight I noticed that one of the big connectors is white, the other black, but they BOTH mate to a black male plug, so I wrapped the one that goes with the white connector in masking tape. It's still there. A supreme moment of clarity for sure that must have saved me a ton of hadaches!!

Also, if you want to know what color the starter button wires are, just remove the switch cover on the right side control and look

As for reading the wire diagram, I know it's a PAIN but just find the two connectors on the diagram, and pick a couple sets of wires on one of them and see if the opposing pairs match up in your light bucket to see if you may have reversed the connectors.

After that, check all your connections. Last time I did mine, no start. Nothing. I found that the starter button wire had broken off the back of the started button. Re-soldered it back on, trouble free ever since. I suppose it may have come loose and made contact with the bar grounding it?

If your connectors are OK, find the start button wires and ohm them to ground.

From the wiring diagram, 2 blk/red (BR) wires come from the switch itself to pins 11 & 12. Pin 11 should be wht/red (WR) and pin 12 should be grn/red (GR).

PM me with your email and I will send you color, fairly scalable copies of the schematic and schematic key.

Thanks Benny. Thanks Phil. I apreciate your help guys.

So the saga continues but I think I'm much closer. Turns out I do have white / white and black / black connectors so no confusion possible there. Al (ssjones) and Benny had said about getting the connects switched around but it seems Triumph must have changed that - maybe on the '06. Switched them anyway to check and nothing works so definitely rules that out.

Previously I said I thought I may have mixed up wires 'cos the bike wouldn't start AND the headlight wasn't working. Scratch that - nothing wrong with the starter. I hadn't connected my throttle cables up in my haste to check out the wring...not knowing that with throttle cables disconnected - bike won't start. Appears that is the case. Who’d have thunk it ???

So the only problem I ever actually had was the headlight. No headlight and I blow the hi/lo fuse every time I turn on the ignition. So I check my wiring against what I wrote down - nothing obvious there, all appears correct. Get my multi-meter out. Not exactly sure what I’m doing with it but tested resistance (ohms) between each wire at the hi/lo headlight switch (blue/yellow, red/black, red/yellow) to the corresponding pin in the connector don in the headlight bucket. I get the signal telling me I have resistance so I assume all the wires are connected as they should be. Was that the right thing to do ? Phil mentioned "ohm them to ground" - not sure what you mean ?

My assumption is therefore, I must have a short in one of the wires somewhere, bit of wire exposed somewhere in the join up in the bars, but before I cut and pull the whole bundle out to check I thought I’d ask for any ideas or help one last time.

Any thoughts guys ????

Not sure, but one diagnostic may be to pull the headlight off, just unplugging it and see if you still blow a fuse. I assume you taped up everything you could inside the bucket to make sure it was all kosher?

My headlight went out this year and I had to repair the wire right at the headlight connector. I guess with all that pushing & pulling on the wire harness in that bucket, something was bound to give. My break was clean though, so pretty easily diagnosed.
Good luck, wondered how you made out. I was hoping it was an easy connector swap. Good to hear Triumph wised upu and keyed those connectors differently.

I have just been reading your post on wiring thru bars, i have a set of Baron drag bars to put on my speedmaster. Can you give me any tips or advice in running the wires through the bars. I have put this off for a couple of months trying to decide whether I should take it to a shop to have it done.Any help would be great.
Thanks
John (A Welshman Lost In Kansas, Cymru Am Byth!!)

Got a pic of the bars? Should be pretty simple, even easier than an America because of less curves. It really is as simple as drilling holes where you want the wires to go in and out, and lengthening the wires. There is a whole write up with pictures floating around in cyberspace too. That shnould help you.

Hey John,

I did the bar wiring and wrote up a fairly extensive doc to cover it and Matt (Sandmann) is graciously hosting it:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~matt_l/bar-wiring.htm

So I finally got back to my bike this weekend. I cut the wires and removed the 'loom' from the clutch side, just enough to take a close look at my soldering and check the wires were correct. Everything looked exactly as it should - I hadn't mixed up any wires and all my joints looked good. The only thing I noticed was a tiny, barely visible piece of solder just coming thought the heat shrink on the blue/yellow wire from the hi/lo beam switch. I guess my soldering wasn't perfect - a little lumpy - and it must have been enough to make contact with the inside of the bars. I taped the joint and then taped the entire 'loom'. Re-soldered all the wiring, wrapped the bundle in the headlight and....SUCCESS !! . Warmed the carbs and started her right up. Ahh, I missed that sound over the winter . Now that speedo is really spoiling the aesthetics. I need to find an alternative.

Nice job! Yeah after the solder cools I usually look the joints over with my tiny nippers and snip off those little hershey kiss shaped dolops of solder. Been burned there before too. Sometimes I'll wrap a wee bit of tape around one, THEN heat shrink around that since the tape is a little more rugged.

That's exactly what it was man...just the a tiny hershey kiss point, just enough to poke through. We live and learn ! It felt sooooo good to get it fixed and start her up.

Glad you got it solved and here's a couple of tips in case you need to solder again.

To lessen those points, swipe your iron to the side parallel with the cable/wire/etc instead of bringing it straight off the work.

To lessen solder balls, use only as much solder as the joint will accept. Remove the solder just before it fills and the joint will pull the rest off the iron.

A note to those in the future who may wire through the bars

In a less than a full daylight situation, the black red clutch lever switch wire is painfully close in appearance to the red black high beam wire, and they both are in that same wire bundle from the left bar down to the worm nest in the headlight bucket. If everything but the high beam works...

Tip number 2 - it is close to impossible to correctly reassemble the guts of the dimmer switch without a very lucky guess, or perhaps extensive experience with micro switches. We're talking two springs, a tiny ball bearing, and a little copper contact. I dropped the roughly 1/32nd in diameter ball bearing twice on the concrete floor, and found it twice. It was only through the grace of God that I pieced it back together so it works. There's no logical reason from looking at the switch why the ball bearing would be placed in the spot it's in, but it does and it works, and I ain't going back in there for love nor money.

I suppose the moral of the story is, there's nothing to know from pulling apart this switch that a multi meter couldn't tell you from the outside. I was tired and desperate to figure out my wiring biff, and so pulled the switch apart.

your emergency shut off switch is assembled the same way...don't ask me how I know this...the little F'n ball bearing rides up over a slight lip(compressing the spring) then drops into a small valley on either side (off/on) holding the switch into position....also next time if you dissasemble it and all the parts "sproing" around the garage...if you sweep the floor three times into a pile then go thru it you WILL find them....

Now that you mention it, the two switches do appear to be identical. It was literally dumb luck that I got the dimmer back together. I thought for sure I would be down for two weeks waiting for another.

Tip # 914, and this one is pretty obvious - the plugs and sockets inside that headlight bucket aren't exactly made of cast iron and bridge cable. One tug too many and it's all over but a river of tears. It would be a good idea to gently pull the wires & connectors fully out of the bucket before wrangling all up on 'em with the wire cutters and all. The connectors fit through the hole just fine, a little at a time.

This one issue I fortunately haven't found out about first hand - yet...

When I did mine, I worked from the controls down. I first removed the controls and then detached and removed the connector blocks from the headlight bucket. That way, I was able to lengthen the wires on the bench before running the bundles through the bars.

I did the same - worked from the controls down. As you know I got hung up and confused along the way but got it all figured out. My lessons for anyone doing this are as follows: Get prepared with everything you need in advance, use 18 gauge wires, as many colors as possible, mark them and write them down, be patient but MOST IMPOTANT of all, take your time soldering, follow the advice given previously to make sure your soldering is as neat and tidy as possible and make sure you heat shrink and tape wrap everything so you don't get any tiny solder spikes shorting on the bars.

I kind of made it up as I went along.
(Read the instructions? Me? That's too easy. I LIKE doing things the hard way)
I took the dykes to the midpoint of the wires, and clipped them in half, then added a length of whatever color wire I had laying around, (all one color would have worked too - not a problem) Put a little masking or scotch tape on each wire to record the color codes. Wrap the color code markers in a wee plastic bag, then wrap the entire length of wire with Scotch #33+ black tape (accept no substitutes) - wrap downhill first, then uphill second, so when you shove the wires down the bars, the tape won't tear. Wipe the tape down with a little liquid Ivory dish soap, or not, (Ivory has no alcohol) then shove the wires down the bars, expose the color code markers, then lengthen the downhill side.

The trick to the color code tape is to leave no adhesive exposed. It can stick to other tapes and obscure your writing when you pull the tape apart. I wrapped a length of masking tape evenly around each wire with a little excess on both sides (like a tab) and cut the excess with scissors.

It all went smooth as silk until I hit the the red black to black red mix up

Another tip - Radio Shack sells heat shrink that is shiny plastic - it's crap.

Also, not sure if they fixed this in later years, but the two big connectors in the headlight bucket are THE SAME. They CAN be mixed up. Both females are black, and one male is white, the other black. So I put some masking tape on the female that goes with the white male, that way I always match them up.

OK someone has GOT to come up with a better way of describing electrical connections than male/female...

I've avoided this job, but with my new higher bars, I might hvae to give it a shot.

It's really not that bad. I've done it 3 times now. If you just think in terms of hip bone connected to the leg bone kinda thing, you'll be all set. In fact, this is one of the first mods I did back in the day. Also relocated the signals at the same time. If you have ANY hint of a desire to relocate your turn signals to the forks, do it at the same time!

Just talking to Rob about doing this to my speedy.
How long did it take you Benny?
And I was thinking about it for that very reason, planning on relocating the turn signals anyway.

The first time or the 3rd time? It's a solid couple-few hour job if you do a good and thoro job on the soldering and heat shrinking. Really there isn't much to be affraid of. It's simple, there's just a LOT of it in there.

Apart from the lapse time and time it took for me to trace the short, learn from my mistake and fix the problem...even for someone as green to wiring as me, I reckon it's the better part of a 6 - 8 hour day. Taking your time, getting set up, moving indicators, then all the soldering, heat-shrink, tape, testing all circuits, bit of lunch, couple of beers….

I agree. Doing this carefully and methodically, it will take you a good portion of a day. It's better to step back, review the work so far, and make sure the work to do is still in order.

I could have got it done a lot faster but I saw no sense in that. I did not and do not want to take it apart to fix errors. You have a tendency to introduce more that way.

A phrase my Dad would harass me with:

Any job
Big or small
Do it right
Or not at all.

Dill, like they said, if you've got the time, make a day out of with with Rob. Grab lunch along the way, etc. Take your time.