81 KZ550 wiring harness

Just picked up first KZ, the 550 A I believe from 1981. Overall she is in pretty good shape. Lot of little things to replace. My main concern is the wiring. I found everything from extension chord wires to speaker wires used in the past to fix or add things.....who knows. I have found some wiring harnesses on Ebay, but none exactly for the '81 550. There are some from 84 and 83 and for the LTD model. Does anyone know if they would be compatible? Doesn't seem like there should be any big differences for these bikes.

Year matters more than model. The 550 alphabet models are way different the GPZs, and tech changes over the years are significant. R

The wiring is mostly similar across the early KZ550's. Outside of a few details like auto-canceling turn signals and fuel gauges, the major difference you will find on the 1980 Kz550A model is the 1-phase charging system and it uses points.

But the harnesses for the LTD models will likely have slightly different wire lengths, so it may not exactly fit your Kz550A standard frame. The 81 gpz550 will be almost the same as your 81 550A model, but a harness for that will probably be scarce.

Any used harness will have many damaged points in the wiring, especially near the headlight, ignition key, and steering area.

If you remove the harness from your bike and lay it out on a large table you will be able to see what you're up against in terms of making repairs. Typically it's not overly difficult to fix the issues.

Know going in that the outer wrapping on the harness is non adhesive. Don't go slathering on electrical tape unless you like a sticky mess. Elliot tape is the proper replacement wrap.

BTW, I've converted harnesses between similar but different model/year bikes before and it can be done. It's way more work than just fixing what you have though unless your old harness is beyond hope.