[HarleyJay]

I recently acquired another bike, a pretty clean and nice 2004 Yamaha Fazer 600, I am pretty impressed with the performance of this bike, however when looking into why the headlights didn't I was not impressed at how the wiring was done by a previous owner, he had added air type horns and power points for sat nav and so, however I just cannot see his method to his madness, its insane, I have bought a second hand main loom and headlight loom, just waiting to get the side lights, tall light cords and indicators, the man has completely hacked up a perfectly good loom.

This man gets the award for someone who should never....ever.....ever touch his bike other than to ride it.

 

[Tobacco Road]

Holy ****, that is a nightmare. You're right, that guy should have kept his hands off the bike. Let us know how you make out.

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

Wonder if he messes with house wiring? I'd call his home ins. agent an give them a tip.

 

[Doc Samson]

As Bill the cat would say "Aack!" That is... something.

 

[Kiwi Steve]

Do the air horns work? Cos it doesn't seem as if anything else does.

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

That guy was a 14 karat A-hole, messing up a bike like that, I am surprised he didn't smoke out the whole wiring system.

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

Who is 'Bill the cat'? is he a cartoon character like Zonkers? any relation to Snaggle-puss, Felix, Garfield, Sylvester, and Jinxie?

 

[HarleyJay]

Funnily enough when I discovered this sh*t shower of a wiring job the lights would not work because he had connected the two wires with a thinner wire and surprise that wire had burned out, so I connected up the wiring, I have seen people hack the main loom before, even to the point where its okay, but I cannot understand what and why he has done half of it, the connectors for sat nave did not have to be hacked into the loom the indicators connectors did not need to be cut, I haven't seen it yet but I am assuming I will need either new connectors for the switch gears or maybe even replace them as I think he has just cut everything.

Everything works at the moment so I am going to at my leisure gather the parts, I wouldn't mind if the bike was rotten but its a very clean and tidy example of a 600 Fazer, its in better cosmetic condition than my VRSCR, which is three years younger with less miles.

 

[Porky]

The I.B.E.W. has a 5 year apprenticeship for a reason:surprise:

Sam:nerd:

 

[slumlord]

Yep. Found some mild hacking around the wiring harness including a Scotchlock] on the 1200 'Wing. They made a take-off on the wiring lugs on the fuse box, so the wiring was unfused. Since I had already removed the on board air compressor, I found a ready source of 10 amp fused power.

People do ungodly things for radio stuff.

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

So right SlumLord, some people have NO idea that the battery on a motorcycle can do so much damage if there are bare wires
that are not fused. I helped my brother re-wire half a car due to his,"**** man it's only 12 volts." thinking. As much as I told him,
"The battery has over a hundred amp hours an lots of cold cranking amps." Well he found out one night with flames popping out
from under the dash board. The same can happen on a bike.

I rewired the direction signals on my Sporty to work as tail-lites and direction signals. I had a long piece of 12 gage house wire
that the nat. electrical code says is good for twenty amps, a big roach clip at both ends, I was checking to see which filament of
the 1157 bulb was the brighter for dir. sigs. .One end was hooked to battery+ I'm working and the next thing is I got a few yellow
jackets flying around me, I start swatting at'em and the loose end of that wire got moved to a nice ground and time for a smoke
show.! No flames but I'll tell ya, the insulation was SO destroyed, and very quickly. Just because the battery was rated at 19 amp
hours, it could furnish a lot more than that.

Just as a reference, since a bike battery can furnish at least 35 amps for a starter for a few seconds, at 12 volts that = 420 watts
which is well over half a horsepower.

 

[FlipFlop]

This is why there are cars and trucks sitting on the side of the road burning to the ground so often.

 

[mike721]

A battery can put out a lot more than that, a typical motorcycle battery is rated at 300 - 400 cca, or cold cranking amps.
Which means that's the amount of amps it can put out for 30 seconds at 0 degrees F without dropping below 7 volts.
So lets try the math
400 amps X 7 volts (probably 9-10 for a while) = 2800 to 4000 watts, or 3-5 horsepower. :surprise:
A typical home electric heater is 1500 watts!

That kind of power will melt a small wire very quickly!

Just as a reference, since a bike battery can furnish at least 35 amps for a starter for a few seconds, at 12 volts that = 420 watts
which is well over half a horsepower.

 

[slumlord]

So right SlumLord, some people have NO idea that the battery on a motorcycle can do so much damage if there are bare wires
that are not fused. I helped my brother re-wire half a car due to his,"**** man it's only 12 volts." thinking. As much as I told him,
"The battery has over a hundred amp hours an lots of cold cranking amps." Well he found out one night with flames popping out
from under the dash board. The same can happen on a bike.

I rewired the direction signals on my Sporty to work as tail-lites and direction signals. I had a long piece of 12 gage house wire
that the nat. electrical code says is good for twenty amps, a big roach clip at both ends, I was checking to see which filament of
the 1157 bulb was the brighter for dir. sigs. .One end was hooked to battery+ I'm working and the next thing is I got a few yellow
jackets flying around me, I start swatting at'em and the loose end of that wire got moved to a nice ground and time for a smoke
show.! No flames but I'll tell ya, the insulation was SO destroyed, and very quickly. Just because the battery was rated at 19 amp
hours, it could furnish a lot more than that.

Just as a reference, since a bike battery can furnish at least 35 amps for a starter for a few seconds, at 12 volts that = 420 watts
which is well over half a horsepower.

That is why I make up a ATC fuse holder used inline with roach clips for supplying battery power to test out wiring components. I start out with a 5 amp and that is plenty for most wiring jobs. I have even used bike batteries to trace down problems in house wiring. Of course you need to make sure that the panel is on lock down mode with no possibility of anyone turning it back on wile you are working

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

A battery can put out a lot more than that, a typical motorcycle battery is rated at 300 - 400 cca, or cold cranking amps.
Which means that's the amount of amps it can put out for 30 seconds at 0 degrees F without dropping below 7 volts.
So lets try the math
400 amps X 7 volts (probably 9-10 for a while) = 2800 to 4000 watts, or 3-5 horsepower. :surprise:
A typical home electric heater is 1500 watts!

That kind of power will melt a small wire very quickly!

Hello Mike721,

You are of course right, I just wanted to point out that even at a somewhat lower amperage than 300 or 400,
Non fused circuits meeting up with a short circuit could cause severe damage to the electrical system.

 

[Ray'ssporty1200]

This is why there are cars and trucks sitting on the side of the road burning to the ground so often.

So right Aphy, it seems the general public has the idea that since 12 volts is one tenth of a 120 volts and not enough to get a
decent ZAZZZZ, there is nothing to worry about, that joke just went up in a puff of smoke. However on a hot steamy day
working on my truck hand on Bat+ and my knee against a chrome bumper, there was an annoying tingle. It just doesn't dawn
on the public that there is a starting motor good for a horsepower an yet they have no idea it takes amps to get any power
out of it. . .Well, we know better.

I saw an episode of N.C.I.S. where a guy was wrapped with bare wire across the chest and hooked to 2 12 volt batteries
giving 24 volts with a lot of amps, since he was sweating, that low voltage with lots of amps messed up his nerves system
so he could not breathe, basically suffocating, weird, death be electricity but not by sending the heart into cardiac arrest.