Hey guys, first time poster, long time reader. Great forum by the way. I'll try to make this short and sweet and any help is greatly appreciated. 
A few months ago, my friend decided to go ahead and splurge on a 1974 (I think that's the year, anyway) XL 70 and basically his electrical system was really hacked up by the previous owner. The guy was even nice enough to give him a print out of a wiring diagram for a completley different model from Honda.
Anyway, it turns out that the iginition switch which had been sold with the bike was not original (judging by the wiring diagram's call for a seven or eight terminal switch; as opposed to the bike's aftermarket four). So to compensate, the previous owner hacked up the majority of the wires coming from the harness and basically piled them all together on one circuit. It's a long story but if anyone needs to know more feel free and ask away.
After explaining this to my friend, I ended up recommending he get an original honda switch as well as a spare wiring harness. I ended up swiping the female end of the ignition switch socket connector from the harness he bought since the previous owner wired in a square connector to fit with the aftermarket ignition that's actually on the bike... Hope that made sense.
After a couple weeks of tinkering, I managed to hook everything up according to Honda specs.
Here's the problem. After going over the diagram a bunch of times, I've realized that the battery only gets charge if the engine's running with the headlight on (correct me if I'm wrong). To me, this seems a little awkward since if you do mostly day riding your battery is eventually going to die.
I've also realized that the tail light needs power for night riding, too. So ultimately, after the power get sapped by these two there's little left over to actually charge the battery.
My question is... Would you guys ultimately recommend I wire up a separate, dedicated circuit coming from the alternator to the rectifier so that he'd get charge whether his headlight were on or off? I know power follows the path of least resistance, so for night riding I was thinking of maybe putting in a switch on that circuit so that the current coming from the alternator going directly to the rectifier could be broken, in order for current to go through the headlight. Does this make sense? What do you guys think? Any suggestions are much appreciated.
Thanks for the help!
-mdcunk:
A few months ago, my friend decided to go ahead and splurge on a 1974 (I think that's the year, anyway) XL 70 and basically his electrical system was really hacked up by the previous owner. The guy was even nice enough to give him a print out of a wiring diagram for a completley different model from Honda.
Anyway, it turns out that the iginition switch which had been sold with the bike was not original (judging by the wiring diagram's call for a seven or eight terminal switch; as opposed to the bike's aftermarket four). So to compensate, the previous owner hacked up the majority of the wires coming from the harness and basically piled them all together on one circuit. It's a long story but if anyone needs to know more feel free and ask away.
After explaining this to my friend, I ended up recommending he get an original honda switch as well as a spare wiring harness. I ended up swiping the female end of the ignition switch socket connector from the harness he bought since the previous owner wired in a square connector to fit with the aftermarket ignition that's actually on the bike... Hope that made sense.
After a couple weeks of tinkering, I managed to hook everything up according to Honda specs.
Here's the problem. After going over the diagram a bunch of times, I've realized that the battery only gets charge if the engine's running with the headlight on (correct me if I'm wrong). To me, this seems a little awkward since if you do mostly day riding your battery is eventually going to die.
I've also realized that the tail light needs power for night riding, too. So ultimately, after the power get sapped by these two there's little left over to actually charge the battery.
My question is... Would you guys ultimately recommend I wire up a separate, dedicated circuit coming from the alternator to the rectifier so that he'd get charge whether his headlight were on or off? I know power follows the path of least resistance, so for night riding I was thinking of maybe putting in a switch on that circuit so that the current coming from the alternator going directly to the rectifier could be broken, in order for current to go through the headlight. Does this make sense? What do you guys think? Any suggestions are much appreciated.
Thanks for the help!
-mdc
unk:
