New wiring harness

[ccsct203]

My fj1100 is begging for some love so I decided to do some frame painting, fzr1000 wheel powder coating  and rewiring
I'm ordering a used fj wiring harness to use as a guide.
I plan to take the harness I buy and either remove all the old connectors and upgrade all the connectors to weatherproof plugs. Or just make a new harness based on the oem harness
I have all connectors and some spools of auto wire when I rewired my sports car.
I would like to make upgrades for different right and left controls
Anyone ever done this?

Thanks

[Earl Svorks]

Yes , I have done that before. Lots of repairs, modifications,  design ,  fabrication and installation
of complete custom wiring harness.
If there is a specific area in the general field of motorcycle repair that I would be happy to do, full time, electrics would be my pick. Here are a couple of things I have learned along the way .
   I have always felt that a electrical repair or modification
must of course work properly and ,IMHO, should be as close to being  visibly indistinguishable from the factory stuff  around it ,as is possible.
  Your proposal seems like a good idea, however, you will discover that the actual wire available,
the several spools you mention, is actually very poorly suited for the job. OK for a sports car but
far too stiff to produce a cooperative main or sub-harness for use on a motorcycle Just compare a length of the jobber stuff to a piece of OEM wire of similar gauge and you'll see what I mean. Both the insulation and the actual strands inside are far less compliant on the jobber stuff. Never mind that there are only a half dozen color choices.
  Perhaps you have access to better suited bulk wire than I do, but I have not , in 40 years seen
any that compares to what comes from Yamaha, or any of the other Japanese factories. Their
cars, their heavy equipment, even marine stuff.  Do you have a supply of harness tape ? The stuff
without adhesive that only adheres to itself and not the wire it surrounds?  The thick bulky stuff the Hydro guys use is not so good for this.
  If you are forced to use common electrical tape when assembling a harness, you will wind up with an assembly too stiff and inflexible to conform to the shapes of the various bends  and turns between  components. 
  One solution to all this grief  can be found in the local wrecking yard. You can cut long chunks
out of an existing wiring harness from a car or truck, any kind of machine on 12 or 24 volts. Even an older harness can be found to have really clean internals if you avoid it's extremities.
  When you want to integrate the new connectors you mention, consider that when you opt to
solder and heat shrink all the joints, you often will produce  a joint an inch long that is rock solid
from solder migrating up the wire in both directions. More localized inflexibility leading to more frequent breakage. Seldom do you find soldered joints on factory wiring anywhere but on the terminals of  components where the sub harness is mechanically secured . My fave method involves stainless
steel seemless, uninsulated butt connectors, and a pair of crimping pliers like the one Snap-on gets about $100 for. Yes these are available from off shore makers, buy'em if you can find 'em but stay clear of those plastic handled flat  metal ,dollar store stripper/crimpers. . They are adequate for stripping but, of little value otherwise.
   I hope you find something useful in this, and I hope the job turns out good.
    Cheers
   Simon
   

[CutterBill]

You can buy high quality mil-spec aircraft wire from www.aircraftspruce.com.  Good stuff, and even comes in colors.

[ct7088]

I agree with Simon auto store wire is worthless. The wire available from Aircraft Spruce is quality wire but you still need to connect to the different relay units which use not commonly available connectors. Do you have the new pins for those connectors or a new plug with pins? Solder migration is a real problem for an experienced solderer. Most connectors used in the aircraft industry are crimp connection type.

Chris

[Pat Conlon]

Yeppers, solder connections break. That's been my experience.  

For an environment subject to vibration, high quality mechanical crimps are the way to go....Although I have been reading good things about these Posilock connectors.:



I haven't tried any of these ...yet.




http://www.aerostich.com/tools/electrical/tools-connectors/posilock-connectors.html

[aviationfred]

For multi-pin connectors. I have used Molex and Amp. Molex connectors can easily be sourced from Radio Shack and Amp connectors can be sourced from terminalsupplyco.com.

Molex connectors are typically White, while the Amp connectors will be Black.

The crimpers can be found at most auto parts shops. In most cases the same crimper works for the Molex and Amp pins.