Ground points on 1980 1100G

[LAB3]

Am sorting out an electrical issue and was having a look at the color wiring diagram for my bike that's posted in the battery & electric maintenance section of the forum.

The schematic shows two ring-looking symbols that both have a black wire running to them from each side of the regulator and rectifier unit. I'm assuming these run through the wiring harness at some point and are set under a screw or bolt on the frame, where exactly can those points be found?

[bikerphil]

Those two separate ground rings both attach to the Phillips head mounting screw at the rear of the voltage regulator.

[LAB3]

Thanks for the quick reply. Something is getting hot, at least that's my impression. The bike runs good for about 10 minutes then starts to spit and sputter, sometimes it straightens itself out and today it just plain died. After being off for about a half hour it started back up and got me back to camp and acted up again just as I was pulling in.

Thinking it might be fuel related I went through pulling the petcocks to see if the screens where clear and took them apart, everything was as clean as a whistle. I'll break out the VOM in the morning and check out everything I can find in the book to check electrics wise, never did check grounds other than the big one off the negative side of the battery.

[motoman]

Thanks for the quick reply. Something is getting hot, at least that's my impression. The bike runs good for about 10 minutes then starts to spit and sputter, sometimes it straightens itself out and today it just plain died. After being off for about a half hour it started back up and got me back to camp and acted up again just as I was pulling in.

Thinking it might be fuel related I went through pulling the petcocks to see if the screens where clear and took them apart, everything was as clean as a whistle. I'll break out the VOM in the morning and check out everything I can find in the book to check electrics wise, never did check grounds other than the big one off the negative side of the battery.

Under left side ignition cover are the pick-up coil wires. The constant movement of the advance assembly causes those pick-up coil wires to internally break inside insulation. The white wire is the notoious culprit. Using both hands try to stretch every inch of those wires. Any stretch found means the tiny wires under insulation are broken from flexing constantly. If one is found broken internally, cut wire right there and use a shortened naked butt connector on one end, then slip on a shortened piece of shrink tubing on other end of wire then crimp butt connector to wire. After which slide shrink tubing over connection and shrink. Do not solder together as the heat from soldering wire will weakon those little wires and break again. Just somthing to check and eliminate as the issue.

[LAB3]

Under left side ignition cover are the pick-up coil wires. The constant movement of the advance assembly causes those pick-up coil wires to internally break inside insulation. The white wire is the notoious culprit. Using both hands try to stretch every inch of those wires. Any stretch found means the tiny wires under insulation are broken from flexing constantly. If one is found broken internally, cut wire right there and use a shortened naked butt connector on one end, then slip on a shortened piece of shrink tubing on other end of wire then crimp butt connector to wire. After which slide shrink tubing over connection and shrink. Do not solder together as the heat from soldering wire will weakon those little wires and break again. Just somthing to check and eliminate as the issue.

Already been in there as was someone before me and without thought I soldered a previous repair. Yesterday I replaced a good length of that wire by just twisting the ends together on the side of the road (ditch actually!) and that's what got me back to where I'm staying.

Got to thinking maybe that wasn't it after all and something was getting hot and needed a cool down since I've monkeyed with that wire three or four times now, that's where I was at when I posted the question last night. Today's plan is for sure to get back in there to do a better fix than what I've got now, someone nearby is going to drop off some proper sized crimp connectors since the ones I have are too large.

[oldyam80sg]

LAB3 -hope you are in a warm place doing these repairs on the road. Here in N.J gotten colder-maybe 29 degrees at night.

[LAB3]

Didn't quite remember when I replied earlier but it was the RED wire that had been previously patched which I then soldered without considering how fine the wire strands are. Sure enough, the WHITE wire had a very narrow feeling spot and when I cut into that spot the copper that was on there was like powder!

Redid the red one using a crimp and shrink wrap as described and also the white wire. The other two wires which are kind of a pale blue also seem to have the same issue but needing some more crimps I had to forego patching those until I hit a hardware store after lunch.

From reading the forums since owning this bike one of the factoids I tucked away was that if the tach needle is jumpy it may be a bad connection. The needle still jumps a bit especially when switching gears, hopefully tearing into those other two wires will help!

As to the cold weather, I'm on the gulf side of central Florida (Cedar Key)at the moment. It got down to 30 the last couple of nights but a warm up is starting today (supposedly) I've been down as low as 20 with the gear I have so no problem there.

[skids]

It sounds to me like the tank is vapor-locking do to the gas cap not breathing.

[LAB3]

It sounds to me like the tank is vapor-locking do to the gas cap not breathing.

Yep, me too. It was removed and dipped in a boiling water and pine sol solution a few days ago. Made for some interesting extra zing to my ramen noodles!

Everything is cleared up now, the proper patching of the original wire and going over the other three seems to have done the trick! Put on about 100 miles between yesterday and today, it's good to go for tomorrow's camp move.