Separate wiring box?

Has anyone moved the XJ wiring hub from the headlight nacelle to a separate waterproof box mounted elsewhere on the machine? I want to get the wiring better protected and organized than inside the spaghetti bowl behind the headlight.

At the same time I am removing as many as possible of the 30-year-old plug connectors arrayed along the frame and replacing them with permanent soldered connections protected by heat-shrink insulation.

Call it paranoia if you wish, but I learned my lessons in motorcycle wiring from "Electrics by Lucas" aka the Prince of Darkness. I have come to prefer a few days of days in the shop with a soldering iron to a night in the rain with a flashlight, a pocket knife and a roll of black tape.

Thanks to everyone in this invaluable repository of advice and information.

 

how many people do you really think that happened to? Is Yamaha and other bike manufacturers that stupid? The Prince of Darkness is a fool.

 

I brought up the subject of a central distribution board sometime ago, it met with resounding apathy, it needs someone to do it successfully & it will be all the go, you could be that guy......

 

When I did my rebuild on the Seca I replaced all connectors except 3 with sealed weatherpak plugs and sockets.
If you carefully rewire, it is possible to edit the harness and remove most of the birds nest without needing a place to relocate it to.
I am still using things like the clutch/neutral lock out relay and headlight relay etc, so its not a stripped to basics issue, its more of a put all the connections in one box thing that the manufacturers used to do.

 

Thanks, Darkfibre, for the Weather Pack tip. Anyone else previously unfamiliar with these sealed connectors can look here: http://www.whiteproducts.com/weather_pack.shtml

I do believe I will use this Weather Pack connection system inside a weatherproof ABS box mounted to the upper forks beneath the headlight. I am at the same time replacing the original sealed beam headlamp with a Pella H4 halogen unit, so it will be nice to have an otherwise empty nacelle for lamp cooling and easy replacement. Pictures will follow as project proceeds.

 

white products seems like a good start. I have an 80 maxim that i just bought aftermarket bucket headlight and single speedometer, so im working on same project. I started off with (not waterproof) but stopping by radioshack and getting a 12 point wiring harness end so i could add the 10 wires from stock speedo/tach system that had like 5 plugs to one. Im in the process of building something to mount to were the 2 screws held on the stock front yamaha sign in between the two forks in the front to get it sealed from weather

 

I found an automotive junction box at the parts store. 20 bucks and just the right size to span the distance between the forks, where the plastic Yamaha cross member sits.

I bolted a rectangle of quarter-inch aluminum to the Yamaha thing, which makes it very rigid and unlikely to pop off. I drilled out and discarded the terminal block inside the junction box and bolted it to the aluminum plate.

Here's the box: http://www.picoofcanada.com/en/product/990_991.php

Yesterday I replaced all of the wiring connections that were in the headlight bucket with heat-shrink, weatherproof butt connectors (crimp and heat with a micro butane torch).

So now the wires are in a continuous path from the two main bundles from under the tank, through the junction box, to their various destinations.

The connectors, necessarily are now above and outside the box but are watertight because of 10-mil heavy duty vinyl electrical tape and then cover cosmetically with split plastic loom protector available at any auto parts store.

So next step is to cut the wires inside the junction box and re-connect the various bundles with Weather Pack connectors, as suggest by darkfibre. This way, it will be easy to disconnect the bundles that serve the lights, handlebar controls, and instrument cluster when necessary for maintenance.

My workshop door is frozen shut at the moment, so pictures must await the next thaw.

 

lol.... thats awsome!! great find... but what about the USA people? what parts store was it?

 

I chopped my way into the shop and took a few pictures of the junction box in progress. Please check my gallery.

The manufacturer, Pico, does not distribute outside of Canada. So, if "ifonly2005" or anyone else would like one, please PM me and I will procure such and send to you at cost + postage. You can dump the funds in my PayPal account.