Glad to be here and the XS that was meant to be...

Making more progress lately. Today we dove into the Right Hand Controls. The original was pretty mangled and missing the start button so we opted for all new switch-gear. Which means today I showed my 17-year-old how to solder. She did great; now we have a nice new harness and connectors, with an extra circuit to boot. Maybe we'll use it for an aux light, smoke screen activation or machine guns. We'll have to run a ground wire to the new switch as the old connected to ground through the bars, but that won't be too difficult. New battery is ordered so hopefully by the time it arrives we'll have everything ready for a test start.
You can see the start button and kill switch, which I much prefer to the original off/on/off rotary switch. There's also that aux switch, which will come in handy.

 

Thanks; I've always liked that style bars on older bikes. Allows for a mostly upright position; I can't get into clip-ons.

 

Had another wiring session today. We added a connector to the new left-hand controls and wired a few relays in preparation for the headlight circuit. Most old (and a lot of new) wiring schemes have headlights pulling power through other circuits, like tail lights and other things. I like to wire headlights direct to the battery with lower gauge wire as there's a noticeable improvement in brightness. We will be bypassing the old headlight relay completely. The headlight power will go through a relay, which will be triggered "on" by the old headlight wire (immediately after the headlight fuse). A second relay will temporarily disable the headlight and instrument lights when the starter button is engaged. At least in theory We also plan to add a yellow aux light (somewhat of a tradition on our bikes) and a "stealth" switch that kills the lights. Wiring is fun.

 

As much as I enjoy wiring, I still have a lot to learn. Here's our plan for the new headlight circuit. If anyone sees a way to make it better... I'm all ears! Maybe @xschris can help.

 

@CaptChrome I considered that and we may still end up going that direction. My main motivation is this: all of the bikes I've owned (granted I've only owned a few) exhibit the following behavior: when the ignition is keyed on, the headlight and gauges light up. I like the immediate gratification of turning the key and seeing the lights. I *think* the XS headlight doesn't come on until the engine actually starts. The new scheme will change this.

 

Today's session... not a lot of time but we worked on the left hand controls a bit more. We realized the connector we had started yesterday will not serve the purpose. SO... we started over.

We decided to use the existing harness from the original controls. We cut it and dove in, adding I the appropriate bullet connectors.

The new switchgear is wired for a positive horn. The original horn switch on the XS connects the horn to ground. We repurposed the black/ground wire from the original harness (the one that supplied ground to the self-cancelling unit through the signal switch) to supply ground to the horn. We taped off the now unused yellow/red wire; everything else in the original harness will function as intended.


The left hand harness, modified for the new controls. The original connector is in good shape; it will connect to the main harness as it always has. You can see the now unemployed yellow/red wire, taped to avoid any mishaps.

 

Today's task: start cleaning up and re-working the mess the PO made out of the fuses. He ditched the fusebox and attached in-line fuses to everything with cheap snap-on splices. So today we made sure we had continuity on all wires, cut them, and prepared them for a new fusebox. Here's the plan:

The 12V from keyed ignition (brown wire) will feed a 4-way fuse box. Ignition and Signal wires will come from this box, on dedicated circuits. The original pre-fuse Ignition and Signal wires will become keyed power, to be used if needed.

We plan to use one fuse for the headlight relay trigger (we are wiring the headlight direct to battery, via a relay) although we could use any keyed source (such as the original pre-fuse Signal, Ignition, or Headlight wires) for the trigger and have an unused circuit.

The 4th circuit is reserved for an Aux circuit. USB charger and an aux light, although we may run the aux in a similar manner as the headlight (from the battery via a relay) as well.

We'll keep the Main Fuse on it's own in-line fuse.

Getting closer.


Old meets new. We cut and crimped the existing wires, readying them for a new fusebox. You can see the brown wire with a circular connector, waiting for some heat shrink. This wire will feed the new fusebox, much like it fed the other circuits in the original wiring scheme.

 

Catching up on this...
We spent a few hours on Saturday, connecting all of the wires we had prepped. Started at the back with the switch 12v from the ignition, going into the new fusebox, then out of the fusebox into the new relays etc. I'll post photos when I can but for now, here's a short video.

We tried to start it with no success; we had attached a short bit of fuel line and put a bit of fuel in the carbs. Then I realized "maybe it just doesn't have enough fuel. We then filled the fuel line with a bit more fuel...

 

More random photos... progress


Top view of the battery/electrics. The new fusebox lifts up to reveal a nice rats nest of wires and two new relays, the replacement Headlight relay and another that is specifically for powering the main headlight direct from battery. The Blue and Black wires connected to the battery are Pin 30 and 85 on the direct relay.

The brown wire powering the fusebox is the OEM wire coming from the keyed ignition. Blue wire coming from the fusebox goes to the replacement headlight relay, and now powers the gauges. Brown and Red/Whote wires are OEM: Signals and Ignition.

Bike runs great, at least at an idle

Now we'll move forward. To be installed: Footpegs, side covers, new petcock. We need to clean up the headlight area and re-connect the clutch cable but we're getting closer to a test run.

 

The good news:


Easy kick-starts.

 

The bad news: my daughter experienced that sinking feeling when you break a bolt But we've all done it... at least I have, and in worse places. She snapped the brass fuel fitting in the petcock. Easy enough to replace; it's an M8 size screw. We just rebuilt the petcock so it'll have to be opened up to remove any brass filings that might compromise the rubber bits inside.


It gave over 40 years of good service... RIP the OEM fuel fitting.

If anyone has a better solution than a generic M8 fitting... I'd love to hear it.