Rewiring the Eldo

[nick949]

Yes, by golly, after 43 years of the PO and (mainly) me bodging stuff, I finally decided to go the whole hog and do a complete rewire of my Eldo.

As of tonight, everything works, which is a minor miracle since as far as I'm concerned electricity is magic and governed by the laws of chance.

BUT (and it's a big one), after being interrogated by Greg Bender, he sent me EXACTLY what I needed, clearly labelled and beautifully packed.  All I had to do was follow his extremely clear instructions on his web site and the job was done. No tears, no sparks, no nasty burning smells.

Here's to Greg 

Nick

[oldbike54]

 Congratulations Nick old man   

  Dusty

[Markcarovilli]

Yeah Greg is the best - any future "issues" will be a lot easier to deal with.  Glad none of the smoke got out....

Mark

[nick949]

Yeah Greg is the best - any future "issues" will be a lot easier to deal with.  Glad none of the smoke got out....

Mark

Thanks Mark. I let the smoke out of a very expensive electronic ignition black box I was trying to put on my 750S once. Never again! It runs fine on points.

N

[JoeW]

All my restorations get a Greg Bender harness!

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

All my restorations get a Greg Bender harness!

 :1:

[fotoguzzi]

Nice PIC!

[Kiwi_Roy]

I have heard great reports about Greg's harnesses.

There is IMO a major flaw in the wiring of most Guzzis and that's the amount of unfused wiring between the battery, regulator, ignition switch and back to the fuse box. If anything there makes contact with the chassis you have a potential 200 Amps to fry up the bike.
I always add a large in-line fuse where the red wire connects to the battery positive terminal. I use a 40 Amp fuse, it should never blow but if the worst happens it will protect the bike.
The fuse is also handy If I need to do any wiring on the bike, just pull the fuse link instead of disconnecting the battery.

Note: Sometimes the main positive wire connects to the large hot terminal on the starter solenoid, in that case I would add the fuse there.

[canuck750]

Well done Nick!

As Roy has suggested I have added a big 30 amp fuse between the battery and the lead to the diode board.

All of my bikes have gotten the full Gregory Bender treatment, fantastic quality wiring harness kits.

I finally got to the bottom of the electrical smoke leaks on my 750 S3 build, it turns out the one thing I did not replace, the original right hand kill / start switch was shorting out and the kill contacts were warped from too much heat over 40 years, after rewiring the switch and filing the plastic contact plate flat I have nice big fat spark and everything else works as it should. I went back to points, static timed them and other than waiting on a new pair of horns it is all done.