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82 1100 Aspencade - rewiring the fairing.

3679 Views 23 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Mr Magic Fingers, 
Mr Magic Fingers
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Hi Everyone,

I have completed a project that I have wanted to do for a while. Actually, this project was a prerequisite for another project I was doing. I though you guys might want to see what I have done even though it has been talked about before. I am providing some good pictures and a schematic of what I have done and explanations of why I took a particular route.

So, it all boils down to what I originally wanted to do… which was to add some driving lights. Sounds simple enough. Those that know me know that I never seem to do simple! hahaha.

Driving lights are a high current device and require a heavy gauge wire going directly to the battery. I have never seen any quality wire included with any fog/driving lights. They all use cheap wire and the wrong gauge. I wonder how many cars have caught fire due to poor wiring and wrong installations. Hopefully this can save someone’s bike.

Here’s what I wanted to do:

1) Run a heavy gauge wire from the battery to the fairing with both the Positive and the Negative.

2) Add a new Fuse Panel in the fairing.

3) Move my voltage meter off the Honda wiring to the new wiring for more accurate readings.

4) Install a 12v cigarette lighter type connection for my GPS and phone.

5) Create a “kill on crank” line so that heavy current or sensitive electronics can be “removed” from the bike power system while starting the bike.

6) Have more room left over for future electrical expansion.

First of all I ran a red and black 10 gauge wire from the battery to the right side of the fairing. This is where I installed my new fuse panel. Right off the battery I used a 30 amp circuit breaker. I do not want to draw any more then 30 amps through this circuit. The bikes stator cannot provide this amount of power anyway. At least it will be wired well if I decide to some day install a poor boy setup. This 10 gauge wire will easily handle up to 50 amps of current in this application as it is only 5 feet in length, not that I will ever use that amount of power.



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Mr Magic Fingers
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This is a schematic of what I have done with the new wiring. It leaves me with room for expansion and provides a very good margin of safety. It should be easy to read for most people. Note that I don’t “ground” items to the bike. They all go back to the fuse panel. I was always taught that “if it’s good enough for your house than its good enough for your project.” I do not consider this overkill. There are less points of failure.

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Shown in this picture are the connections to the battery. I have wrapped the new positive wires in wire loom and have coated multiple times the exposed positive connections with liquid electrical tape. All connections to the battery were removed, cleaned with CLR and coated with a smidgen of dielectric grease.

Also note the separate power cable running to the stereo. This was done last year when I did a custom install of a new stereo head in the fairing. You can see that thread here:

http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum1/49466.html

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Here is my fuse panel. I have “enclosed” this in an old plastic project case saved from years gone by. When actually installed in the fairing it sits below the “glove compartment”. I have not installed the cover as I do not want the compartment to flood in rain or to have any condensation in there. There are holes in the bottom for draining of any water that makes it in.

Things to note here are: 3 circuits are used and there are 3 spare, the heaviest load ground (the driving lights) are on the same finger as the main negative cable coming from the battery and again the positive supply is under several coats of liquid electrical tape. All connections have dielectric grease on them.

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Mr Magic Fingers
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“Kill on Crank”



One of the things that I wanted to do was to make sure that selected devices on this new Power Buss would be isolated from the bikes power when the bike is rolling over for a start. During the starting or cranking process the bikes electrical system is an awful place to live if you’re an electronic device. The spikes and “brown outs” are absolutely horrendous. Anything and I mean ANYTHING in my humble opinion that is “electronic” should be isolated from the bike during starting. My GPS and Stereo are protected in this way.

I wanted to make sure that there is as much power getting to the starter and the coils as possible even though I have an additional load on the system. On a bit of a side note, a lot of this electrical “crap” surging down the lines can be cleaned up if you have a clean starter. The benefits are many including very quick starts. As most of you know I did a “how to” article on cleaning a starter. You can see that thread here:

http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum9/73447.html

Getting back to the “kill on Crank”, Honda already has this in mind from the factory. When you crank the starter it will automatically remove power to the high/low beam switch. With that in mind I have tapped into that circuit and run a new wire to the fairing. This is the wire that supplies the power to the Hi/Low beam selector switch. Basically, when you hit the starter button the power running to this cable is cut and there is no power to the headlight.

The wire that you need to tap into is a blue w/white stripe. I cut open the wire loom here and spliced a new green wire to that wire. I had a good length of the Honda wire loom leftover from working on other parts of the bike and it was match for what is on the switch assembly that goes down to the triple tree. That new green wire I installed powers relays that in turn control the Driving Lights and DC Receptacle.



This picture shows the horn, hi/low and signal light switch assembly.

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Mr Magic Fingers
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All those relays!!



In looking at my schematic you will notice that I have used 3 relays. They are just standard automotive relays.

I used one to control the connection to the digital Voltage Meter. That relay is triggered by power from a leftover fuse on the left side of the fairing that has power when the key is in ACC, RUN and PARK. It connects the digital volt meter directly to the 10 gauge wire for much improved accuracy. The next one kills the driving lights on crank and the 3[suP]rd[/suP] one is used to kill the power to the accessory DC receptacle in the glove compartment on crank as well.

Just as a note, I remove all the hard plastic “insulation” from all connectors before I crimp them. You know, it’s the red, yellow, blue etc. plastic. I crimp the connections, then solder them and then use heat shrink tubing. All connections have a bit of the dielectric grease on them.

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Mr Magic Fingers
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This second picture shows them mounted inside the fairing. Because I ripped the old stereo out of the bike when I first got it, I have all sorts of room in there to do MY WORK. If you decide to do a project like this, plan ahead and think where you’re going to put things.

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This third picture shows where the bolts come out of the fairing that mount the relays. I used 2 holes from where some of the old stereo equipment was located. I did have to add the 3[suP]rd[/suP] hole in the middle. I put a bit of flat black paint on the stainless steel bolts to help hide them. I does not look as obvious in real life as it does in this picture.

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Here are the switches that are used to selectively turn on and off the auxiliary DC power receptacle and the driving lights. The switch “plate” was already on the bike but I replaced the switches with new ones. The switches were packed with dielectric grease as they are not hermetically sealed. The fuse holders are not being used. The contacts in the switches are rated well above the requirement of the driving lights. They have a 25 amp rating.

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Here is the wiring behind the switches.

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Here is the wiring from the battery, the switches and the right side driving light going up into the fairing.

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A picture of my new driving lights. The color matches the bike perfectly. It even has some shinny chrome!!!

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The front of the bike…

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Auxiliary power in my glove compartment. I plug my GPS into here or my cell phone to charge it while on the road.

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Mr Magic Fingers
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It took a few days to do this as I am fussy and want to have all the “gotchas” covered before I start the job. It was a good project to do and helps keep the stress off the Honda wiring. Some worthy things to note:

1) At 3000 RPM the battery is reading 15.0 volts. That is 0.75 volts higher then when it was connected to the Honda wiring. It does not go higher with higher RPMs. The meter is getting a better connection and a truer reading from the battery due to the heavy gauge wire coming to the new fuse panel. At idle (about 1000 RPMs) I am getting 14.3 volts. This meter is calibrated against my good Fluke meter. It is dead on.

2) When my driving lights are on I only get a 0.4 volt drop initially and in a few minutes it will drop down to 13.4 volts and stay there (at 3000 RPM). These numbers are with 55 watt bulbs (110 watt total).

3) I have driven all over PEI on a recent trip (1330 km) and had the lights on all the time, even driving in Charlottetown (city driving) and have had no ill effects. I do use LED lights in all other places on my bike. HOWEVER, I will move to 35 watt bulbs (70 watt total) if I can ever find them locally. Better not to tax the charging system too much.

So, that’s it.

If any one has any questions please ask.

Tim.
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Bschofield
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i guess i'm definitely with the right crowd..i did nearly the same thing. only i replaced my regular fuse block with the same one you are using, and put in relays for accessories with a 10 gauge wire from battery as well. then pigtailed for 5 switched accessories.. however.. I did not know about the starting cutout. i will definitely be implementing that in my projects as they come up. very clean. great job!:clapper:
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brianinmaine
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Very nice attention to detail with lots of explanations for us. Gives me a lot tc think about.
Thank you very much!

A couple questions:
when running wire from the battery to the fairing, did you use a plug to allow disconnecting for removing the fairing? What kind, and how/where did you run it into the fairing?

you packed the switches with dielectric grease. did you open them up and get as much in as possible or what?
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Mr Magic Fingers
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Hey Brianinmaine,

The answer to your question about the connector and fairing is “No”. It is a remote chance that the fairing will ever have to come off. If it does, all 3 wires that leave the fairing (all wires really) can be disconnected. There is not need to cut them. For such a remote possibility of having to remove the fairing it is not worth the time or expense to introduce a point of failure to this circuit that will get dusty, dirty and corrode.

In regards to the switch, if you look closely at the 10th picture you will see two holes in the side of the case of the switch. I simply squirted a bit of dielectric grease in there and swished it around with a little twist tie from a plastic freezer bag and clicked the switch a few times. That “should” keep the switch clean inside. Maybe the word "Packed" was an overstatement. I put in a moderate amount.

In reality I will probably pick up two proper hermetically sealed switches to take their place.

Tim.
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brianinmaine
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Thanks for the reply. I tried a similar idea before by running a cut off computer power cord (3 #12 wires) to the fairing, but then I went to remove the fairing and had an ut-oh moment! I have since taken it out but I love your idea, but it dont look cheap. Which is good. or bad. depends if you got the cash!
Now to integrate a hazard light circuit in there...

Very cool stuff!
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Mr Magic Fingers
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Hey Brianinmaine,

Thanks for the compliment btw.

The only things I had to buy was the black and red 10 gauge wire. I got two rolls of 25 feet on sale for $20.00 for both, a fuse panel for $8.00, Driving Lights for $20.00 and the two switches for $6.00. The rest of the wire and stuff I already had as you can tell as the relays say “door lock” and “door unlock”. They use to be part of a car starter that I removed. I save anything electrical that is in good condition and safe. Never know when I will need them!!!

Tim.
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