Wiring Question

Today I was going over all my electrical connections on my 1981 KZ1100-a and under the right side cover there are 7 connections. Can anyone tell me what the red connector is for? The wire gets really hot while the bike is running and two of the ends seem to have melted and when I finally got the connection apart I found out that the inside was melted. When I disconnect it nothing changes on the bike. Any help will be appreciated. Darren

This red connector has wires connected to it? What color are the wires? Where do the wires go? I am not familiar enough with the J bike to guess based on connector color nor will many other folks be either. Do you have a wiring diagram? If I knew the wire colors, I might be able to hazzard a few ideas as Kaw wire colors remained much the same from the 73-80 versions to the J motor versions of their KZ bikes.

try again

Sorry I meant under the left side panel I will take some pics later

AHA! Getting this thing figured out... left as you sit on the bike or face the bike??? bwhahaha sorry... the BIG RED connector is a big red battery cable that connects the battery POSITIVE post to the starter solenoid. This shouldn't get hot. If it does, I wouldn't operate the bike until we figure this out. The "right cover" thing is what threw me. If it is getting hot, you really need to buy a multimeter and avoid operating the bike till you have one in hand. Could be the charging system is messed up or you could have a short in the battery or something along those lines.

while you are sitting on the bike it is the side panel on the left side. Sorry.

When you open it up there are 7 connections with one end affixed to the bike. There is a red, brown, blue, green, and clear ones. But it is the red one that has shorted and melted. Now I know there is power there because of the sparks I had. But I just don't know what they control, when i disconnect it there is no difference in anything visible. THere is also 6 wires leading in to the connection 3 yellow, a black with yellow strip and a white with yellow stripe. Sorry I am not to good at describing this but i will try to take a picture when I get home tonite from work.

Thanks
Darren

Post edited by: Kingborgie, at: 2006/09/08 00:27

Sounds like the reg/rec and with it disconnected the battery will go flat sooner or later.

The three yellow, black/yellow and white/yellow are the regulator/rectifier. You also missed one wire. The three yellow are the wires coming from the alternator. The black/yellow is the ground. The white/yellow will be the main power out wire that connects to the MAIN fuse and the battery (on the positive solenoid terminal with the cable) and there will be another wire as well; probably brown which is the reg/rec feedback sensor wire. You need to take a pic and post it as that is ALL the wires coming into and out of the reg/rec. The other wires sound like fused and switched subcircuits off the ignition switch; Clean wires? I haven't heard of clear before.

That connector really should be worked on... the reason is that you likely have problems with shorting right in the connector... that is the connector coming from the alternator. The three yellow wires will be the three AC legs coming from the alternator. Each likely carries about 50VAC. You can pull the connector off with the bike running and put multimeter leads on any two of these connectors to check the juice put out by the alternator... each should be nominally 50VAC no matter how you test the yellow wires. The brown wire goes TO the reg/rec. Make sure that when the bike is running you have at least 12VDC on this wire as it provides the electrical feedback for the reg/rec to tell the reg/rec how to adjust voltage. The black/yellow is ground. Make sure the ground gets plugged into another black/yellow connector or that it goes to a frame ground. The white/red wire is coming OUT of the reg/rec and it splits somewhere in the area and one leg goes to the where the POS battery cable connects to the starter solenoid and the other leg will go to your MAIN fuse where it goes through the fuse and on to the ignition switch. The other two wires, I can't be sure but the diagram that was posted should show (can't see it as I type this). There are generally TWO other wires that go with this bunch due to the location physically... one is a wire off your neutral switch and the other is a wire off the oil pipe in back of the #3 cylinder on the engine case behind the block. Both the last two wires are going to idiot lights up by your key. One is the neutral indicator and the other is for the idiot light that says out of oil or low oil pressure.

What to do? You had best test first the power out of the alternator by using a multimeter on VAC scale and putting the probes on two of the three yellow wire connectors with the bike running. You had best be getting 50 VAC any way you test so you will have to do six tests I think (3 wires testing across each pair of connectors).

NEXT, if your AC is OK, put your leads on the battery from your multimeter (POS to POS and NEG to NEG) and put the meter in VDC scale. At idle you should have 12.5 VDC and at 4000 rpm you should have 14.5 VDC. If the AC has checked out and the reg/rec checks OK via this test, then you have a short causing the connector to heat up...

If this is the case, take the connector off and see if you can get a replacment. Buy another alternator from eBay if you have to or perhaps z1enterprises.com can help out with a connector. They have access to a bunch that DO NOT show on their web site. If they have the pic, they may be able to match the red connector. At that point, I would use new contacts and cut all the wires and splice new wires/connectors and the new contact to the old wires or just run new wires from the alternator and use new wire for the other leads.