Need a 1979 XS1100 Special WIRING HARNESS

[e.m.vans]

I need a wiring harness for a 79 special. Had a diagnostic run and they tell me that and the ignition coils are bad. Got coils on ebay, but wiring harnesses are not readily available.... anyone have one they are selling????
Thanks
Eric
eric_vanstrom@Yahoo.com

[Ken Talbot]

'They' did a diagnostic and told you your whole wiring harness was bad? Time to get your bike out of that shop and think about doing a bit of simple work on it yourself. Other than a fried harness, i.e. melted and burned through from some nasy kind of electrical short, about the only thing that can go wrong is dirty or loose connectors. Spend a little time browsing through the electrical section here on the forum, and maybe use the search tool at the top of the page to look for 'electrical gremlins'. It's not that cleaning the connection is very hard to do, it is just that there's a whole lot of them that you need to get to.

[andreashweiss]

I agree with Ken. Sounds like a bike shop that is too lazy to find your electrical gremlin.Sure a new wiring harness solves the problem. Start at one end of bike and disconnect,clean,check all the connections. If you find a cracked,damaged or broken one let me know I still have a gallon pail full of misc male/female connectors for the xs1100 with plenty of wire on them to do a decent splice.

[RS Thornton]

I'd make sure you get your old coils back too and check them yourself.

[e.m.vans]

Wiring harness

The harness and ignition coils were returned on the bike. I told them very specifically that I wanted to do the work myself, thats why I only had a diagnostic. the parts were $400 for coils and harness new... I will start with cleaning everything to see if it helps, but any suggestions on WHERE to re-test the coils for free? Literally, it cranks and just wont start and this is what the shop told me it is... thanks for ALL the help.
Eric

[e.m.vans]

Harness....

Almost forgot. I had to rewire the fuses. I did this before I took it in... all the lights work and the engine cranks. Could I have miswired a fuse and thats why it show a bad coil??? thanks again
Eric

[RS Thornton]

As I recall the test for a coil is with a mulimeter, if you do not have one you may find that autozone has one behind the counter for free use. If you are going to run one of these classics you may want to invest in your own multimeter (~$20 at sears). If you shoot me your phone number by email at athenatho@msn.com I can call you tonight when I have the manual open and tell you what the coils should test too, As I recall I have NGK caps that will change the reading so you need to consider that.


I doubt you damaged the coils when you rewired.

[RS Thornton]

Well, I finally opened the book. The resistance on the primary coil (the skinny wires) is 1.5 ohms +/- 10%, ground is shown as grey or orange depending on whether is is left or right coil.

secondary resistance should be 15k ohms +/- 10% .

Scott