Complete electric makover

I was thinking about it and it wouldn't be too hard to completly replace the wiring and basic electric parts with simplified components. The starter can be run off a relay that attaches to the start button and safty measures. Turn signals/headlights/brake lights are all easy. I don't really understand the alternator/battery charging circuit and the sparkplug firing circuit. How simple would those be to make from scratch? I'm pretty good with a soldering iron and can figure out relays etc. maybe even a microcontroller.

 

You could eliminate a lot of unnecessary wires but that's about as far as you can go. There's no reason to do that unless your wiring harness is in real bad shape and needs to be replaced. You could always make a new harness by following the wiring diagram in the service manual and installing just the wires that are actually needed point to point following the diagram but you are going to run into problems finding the proper connectors to match the components on the bike. Another way to go is to unwrap the tape around the harness and remove all the unnecessary wires and then tape it back up but that's a lot of trouble and doesn't really accomplish very much. If the harness needs to be replaced it would be best to just pickup another one from a wrecking yard.

 

Connectors and contacts are available from Mike's XS site. There are a number of other sites that sell the conponents, but I don't remember the names. You'll have to PM me for them. I've thought about building complete harnesses but it would be expensive to tool up with all of the wire needed (copper isn't cheap anymore) and I haven't been able to locate all of the coordinating colors yet.

 

Components are already pretty simple. Unless you want to replace the TCI with breaker point ignition - and find some way to do a mechanical/vacuum spark advance - there isn't much to simplify.