New rider, new bike

Hi everybody! This is my first bike and I'm fairly new to street riding. I've got experience riding dirt bikes in my youth so I'm not averse to kick starting and counter steering (or bumps for that matter). I recently acquired a 1980 KZ650 rat bike off Craigslist. It's super dope but I'm having issues due wiring among other things. It's a custom job and is super fun to ride but right now it won't start. The rectifier grounded out a few weeks ago so I just rewired the wires together after they burned apart. Now it won't start (though it did after the fix but slowly has grown trouble starting). The battery rests at 12.90 volts but drops to around 9 when I hit the starter. So I'm sure my wiring job was the problem. I'm going to have an engineer neighbor look at it when I can but if anyone here is an electrician and can help me out, that'd be great!! Thanks!

Welcome to KZRider 
Next time click the insert all tab to complete your picture installation 
I fixed it for you this time 
Dave

Welcome from the UK

Your electric R/R (recifier/regulator) poor wiring connections will give you some kind of trouble, sooner or later !!!
Crimping or soldering connections and a double shrink tube isolation is the best way/methode to prevent those problemes !!!
Bad connections can generate a lot of heat, molten, burned plugs and oxydations due to high current/low voltage (< 12 Volt ), instead of low current and high/max voltage (>12 Volt) !!!

Thank you guys. I think I did pretty well with the crimping and connecting the wires, I just think I may have gotten a couple mismatched. If anyone had any idea as to my wiring job, that's why I included multiple pics. 

Is that orange thing a household wire nut? That's a definite no-no. 

RatRod1980 wrote:

Hi everybody! This is my first bike and I'm fairly new to street riding. I've got experience riding dirt bikes in my youth so I'm not averse to kick starting and counter steering (or bumps for that matter). I recently acquired a 1980 KZ650 rat bike off Craigslist. It's super dope but I'm having issues due wiring among other things. It's a custom job and is super fun to ride but right now it won't start. The rectifier grounded out a few weeks ago so I just rewired the wires together after they burned apart. Now it won't start (though it did after the fix but slowly has grown trouble starting). The battery rests at 12.90 volts but drops to around 9 when I hit the starter. So I'm sure my wiring job was the problem. I'm going to have an engineer neighbor look at it when I can but if anyone here is an electrician and can help me out, that'd be great!! Thanks! 

The best advice I can give you is make a pot of coffee, download the FSM and go through circuit by circuit comparing the bike to the wiring diagram. Trying to guide you remotely through fault finding when the wiring has been butchered is "close to impossible" as any test steps will potentially be inconclusive (guidance offered is based on the factory wiring diagram)

Yeah, dang. I have the wiring manual but it's a beast. I thought it'd be a simple, "the red one goes to the yellow one" but nah.. that's why I'll be asking my engineer neighbor in person asap. 

Haha the wiring nut was one of the few connectors I had left. I presume it isn't waterproof or something? 

RatRod1980 wrote:

Haha the wiring nut was one of the few connectors I had left. I presume it isn't waterproof or something? 

It isn't waterproof but more importantly houses don't "vibrate" which will cause it to loosen and the wiring will burn again

Lol oh... I appreciate the info! I'm starting to wonder though, and I might drop this in another topic, but I don't know if my wiring job is the problem now. What happens is it tries to turn over but never does. I thought it was cuz the battery dropped to 9.6 when I hit the starter but apparently that's what batteries do. It doesn't start with the kickstart either. This problem started about a week ago. The spark plugs are brand new. I think it's something to do with the fuel... Whether I set the petcock to "on", "res" or in the middle, it would run regardless. But now I'm unsure of where to set it cuz it doesn't seem to start either way! The inline fuel filter has a little darker mark on it so I thought maybe it was dirty. And the carb needles are set one mark too rich which I'll fix when I do take the carbs off one day. But for now, I'm just not sure why it won't start even though it tries to. Threw some Seafoam in the fuel and carbs last week and she was running nicely. But decided to start having trouble starting. Now it won't. I can hold the starter all day and it just won't flip over. 

RatRod1980 wrote:

Thank you guys. I think I did pretty well with the crimping and connecting the wires, I just think I may have gotten a couple mismatched. If anyone had any idea as to my wiring job, that's why I included multiple pics. 

Sorry, to say but this is one of worst kind of a hack job i´ve ever seen!