my mystery wire

for those of you who have been helping me get my z650 back on the road i thank you very much. I am only one week away from bringing it in for inspection, which here in japan is ridiculously strict. I have two concerns still:

1. I have a mystery wire!! When rewiring my tail section this past weekend, after everything was connected i noticed i had one wire left. I replaced both rear turn signals with smaller, more modern ones, as well as a ZII style tail light. I have three wires going to the tail (red, blue, and black), and i have two wires going to each turn signal (power and ground). However i still have one extra wire coming out of the same group of wires that lead to the right rear turn signal. I looked at my wiring diagram but still stumped.

2. My speedometer seems kind of funky. Compare to the tach, my speedometer looks in appearance completely different. The tach, when lit, has a nice green ring around it that illuminates the surface of the guage. My speedo however, does not. It just has a messy kind of non-colored lighting. Should it look the same as the tach in both green color and appearance?

thanks again for your help. I just order new dunlop TT1000 tires and and RK chain for her. Cant wait to take her for the first ride.

would need the wiring digram for your KZ but possibly running light conductor...

Post the wiring digarm so we can have a look at it if you'd like...

OMR

I'd imagine the Japanese Kawasaki's have/use the same color codes as the U.S. models:

1.RED,running or tail light circuit.

2.BLUE,brake light circuit.

3.BLACK with YELLOW stripe,the ground circuit.

Possibly the previous owner added additional running lights or turn signals, explaining the extra wires.

I'd get a multimeter set on D.C. volts(range of 20) and see if they are what I mentioned.

Put the BLACK probe on a good ground or the Negative(-) battery terminal and the RED probe on a mystery wire with the turn signals turned on.

Like I mentioned above,it's either an aux turn signal or running light source.

x3


if it flashes it's extra turns....no flash running lights....make sure it's well taped up and sealed from touching anything and bury it for later lights...


MFolks wrote:

I'd imagine the Japanese Kawasaki's have/use the same color codes as the U.S. models:

1.RED,running or tail light circuit.

2.BLUE,brake light circuit.

3.BLACK with YELLOW stripe,the ground circuit.

Possibly the previous owner added additional running lights or turn signals, explaining the extra wires.

I'd get a multimeter set on D.C. volts(range of 20) and see if they are what I mentioned.

Put the BLACK probe on a good ground or the Negative(-) battery terminal and the RED probe on a mystery wire with the turn signals turned on.

Like I mentioned above,it's either an aux turn signal or running light source.

The speedo and tach have two small bulbs each for illumination. Does it look like only one bulb is burning? One burnt bulb will cause a darker than normal glow at night.

What color(s) is the mystery wire?

Early meters had a black outer ring; newer ones (I think beginning 1978) has the aqua blue ring. It is easy to see the difference during daylight. Sounds like your speedo and tach may be mismatched. Ed

thanks everyone for your input. The mystery wire is red, but that doesnt say much because I am pretty sure that the previous owner did some fooling around with the wires. I will check them all with the multimeter to find out. I didnt think about the possibility of some kind of custom accessories being added by the previous owner.


As for the guages, all bulbs are lit and working properly. I think 650ed is correct in saying that they are mismatched. However now that i take a closer look, i think it looks like my speedo may be damaged. I think i can see the greenish ring, same as in the tach, but it looks to have fallen down behind the gauge face.