HELP! Moto went up in smoke!

So I just hooked up the negative charge (after the positive of course) to my battery of my 1978 KZ650, and the whole back end of the wiring went up in a cloud of smoke. The bike has been runnign fine, and i just took battery off to put new signals and taillight, which were not hooked up at the time of the smokeing disaster. ANy ideas, im a freakin mess my baby is dead

Help everyone understand;
You had your new parts mounted, but no connections to the new parts electrically?
You removed, then reinstalled the battery, positive cable to positive terminal, then the negative, and then some wires smoked. Which wires? Where on the harness? Can you see wire colors still? Did you have to recharge your battery? If so did you reverse the polarity when recharging? This can only happen with a dead battery being recharged, so doubtful.
Anyway shot some pictures of it and post it up, always helps.

Definitely, first thing tomorrow I will shoot some pics, ALl of the smoking was from the part of the harness in the general vicinity of the battery, and it was a brand new recharged battery.

and yes, the new parts were not hooked up electrically yet

The only thing that can pull that much current is a hard short to ground on a main battery line or hooking the battery up reverse polarity.

Shouldn't the rectifier/regulator be mounted with fasteners instead of a ty-wrap? On most Kawasaki's I've owned, it's usually under the battery compartment or nearby.

Thinking Kawasaki motorcycle wiring uses black/yellow for ground wires.

A stock harness wire of any other color should not be connected to ground.

Good Fortune!

Yeah the whole wiring system seems like a mess to begin with, and that ground wire that's not black and yellow is the one connected to the negative battery connection. Do you folks think a new harness is my best bet?

Yes, contact the motorcycle salvage yards and see if they have a wire harness for your bike.

Try these:

www.oldkawman.com
www.cycle-salvage.com
www.motorcycle-recycle-center.com/
www.newrivercyclesalvage.com/index.html
www.bornagainbikes.net/
www.motolane.com/

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationAs Patton said do not hook any color other than a Black/ yellow to ground. That red/white with the eylet=:pinch:
For a harness look at this;
cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Wiring-Harness-K...&hash=item43a4ee5aab

Thank you so much guys