XJ riders,

The 81 XJ 650 i recently purchased has some wiring trouble. Today, i replaced a worn out fuse box with one from Radio Shack, but i have 4 more wires coming from under the gas tank that i dont know what are. I dont have a manual for the bike, a wiring diagram, nor want to remove the gas tank to trace these wires.

I was wondering if ya'll could tell me what these are. Here is a pic.

http://www.portcitydigital.com/HPIM0757.JPG



The 4 unknowns are the:

Orange
Blue
Light Orange
Light Green

Thanks for the help guys.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're gonna have to take off the tank and do some tracing. :(

For the H model (1981), the blue wire runs from the speedometer and the tachometer and runs to the left handlebar switch and lights those units up. The orange wire runs from the TCI unit to the ignition coils and the pickup coil. But I don't see anywhere in the diagram where the orange and blue wires run to the same place, so I'm kind of surprised to see them sheathed together in your picture. Sorry to say, but there isn't a light orange or light green wire used on this model. Leads me to believe someone just used whatever colors they had available when the fixed whatever it was that was broken. The only way you will know is to trace those wires and see where they go. GRRRRRRR!!

Cary.

Thanks for your help Cary..

Im not sure what im going to do just yet. Im still stumped. I wonder if its possible that these are the remains of an alarm installation. I hate that i gotta take the tank off to find out.

One thing i forgot to mention... the blue and the orange wires that are sheathed together are large guage. Single solid copper line i believe, but not your standard several strand wire. When i got the bike.. the blue wire was being grounded off the negative pole straight off the battery. What the...

Anyway, i appreciate your help man. I'll post back on this when i figure it out.

If anyone else has some other possibilies, id love to hear them.

Well,... i figured it out.

Its 3:34 am and i could sleep so what better thing to do than trace those stinking wires. So i grabbed a flashlight and my tool box and headed out. I was just about to remove the gas tank when i decieded to tug on those wires a bit and look for sound or movement to help me trace.
i heard something in the headlight bowl give way.. so i ignored the gas tank and took the headlight bowl apart.

Would you believe some joker had the headlight completely wired with these 4 lines, straight to the battery and fuse box?

here is how it goes. Lets start with the headlight plug...

Black, Yellow, Green.....

the black was taped to the blue wire... Yellow was taped to the orange... and the green wire was taped to both the light orange and light green and going no where.

This kinda stuff makes me want to slap someone upside the head.

Love your bike, wire it right!

Good call on the tracing Cary, thanks man.

Brent

Glad you got it figured out. Definitely sounds like they tried to wire some kind of accessory into the existing wiring harness (alarm, fog lamps or something). The black wire would be the power wire and both the green & the yellow go to the left handlebar switch to control it. Don't ya just love it :o .

cary.

What does it take? A whole 15 minutes to get the fuel tank off? :P

Its not about the time :)

Its the principle of the thing :) I dont wanna remove a gas tank cause of someone else crapy wiring job.