A bike is only as good as its wiring right? well that's how I felt after putting big monies into my 1980 FL for months on end, doing everything from motor, every rolling bearing of the chassis, paint, the whole 9. It's cool and all when you have that almost showroom bike you've always dreamt of, but when it leaves you stranded on the side of the road with broken 40 year old wires, it'll go from your love to your enemy real quick.

Well anyway, he's my progress -- included is a Badlands Pro III full lighting module, and I finally got around to snaking my control wires, yay!

Still a few more things to do, like installing an air horn compressor into the crowl and an additional independent 20amp switched breaker powered 8 tab terminal strip on dedicated 14g for additional future accessories (heated grips, my usb ports, cig lighter). Mid section & fender will be finished tomorrow, going for as clean as possible with little visible wire as possible -- I'll post some pics tomorrow, as well as the heavy duty starter button I'm putting in the crowl.

 

before you go any further you should try to semi fit the gas tanks dash as some of that is going to be in the way and the blinker box is the horns spot in an original piece

 

That was my biggest concern with the routing, but to my surprise, everything fits really well. If I could tell ya how many times my tanks were on & off the bike hahaha.

 

First, nice job on te rewire job. Definitely looks a lot cleaner. That said I would do as John suggests and do a test for for each of your gas tanks, especially in the areas I circles on your pics. There is not a heck of a lot of inside room on the OEM style gas tanks. Last thing you need is to bust a tab (upper or lower). Seen guys squeeze the tanks aginst the sides, bolt them in place, and later only to have one of the tabs crack from vibration.




Disregard this. Just saw that you did the test fit. Good for you.

Whose wire harness did you use (Badlands as the complete kit), or is this your own making?

 

The wiring is all from scratch using mostly U.S materials (Wirebarn Copper GXL wire). I used the Badlands Illumination Pro III, which is a universal splice & wire type module made for the older bikes with for DIY wiring projects.

I was originally just going to cut, pull, then re snake certain old wires that have become fragile in the original harness, then I saw Wirebarn was doing a package deal on their 11 color assorted 25ft/ea wire packs and oddly enough, they are all Harley's OEM colors, with the addition of a pink roll too!

I started by laying out the old harness and studying & remembering its color schematics, and then I started to draw up some rough diagrams to better implant it all into my head. Once I had some visual in my head, I took my hammer & my chisel out and started away at the harness with plans to do things rather simple, bullet connectors, etc and then... well, you know how it goes once you start something, plans change and you get carried away I experimented with multiple brands and types of loom as well, probably pissed away $100 in loom alone

The eliminator module was also something that kind of just fell into the plans along the way -- I didn't even know about those badass modules up until a week ago. I'm glad I saw a post about it on Facebook.

About those tanks though, I didn't realize how much room there actually was in the cluster area between the tanks until I eliminated that messy rats under the dash. I made the plug wires long enough where you can easily pull the dash up, unplug and remove for work but also short where they would fold up and tuck nicely with room to spare between the tanks.
Where the harness runs to the - crowl the diameter is only slightly larger than stock (due to a few extra wires in there for future tac coil trigger, independent accessories, and the badlands adds an addition two wires for the independent instrument indicators so it does make just it a weebit larger overall.

 

I forgot to add about the horn, I'm mounting a 4" mini compressor on the opposite side with a relay then installing two mini air trumpet horns between the forks, under the crowl. And if that fails, I'll just buy a tiny car horn and mount it on the other side.

 

TommyShovels, thanks for the information. Told the wife that after I complete the 65 project, I have one more rigid build left in me. saved your info on wiring sources. Looks like a clean way to go.

 

while you over did the circuit braker deal it could help with a short that is really few and far in-between
you should ask but I get why not

all that was necessary was one 30 amp attached to the rear corner of the battery box - NOT picking on your job its a classic and it shows off your expertise

just know the gas tank tin is thin and the tabs really really do not survive being influenced - mainly because of the thickness issues of the tab and the tank tin differences

just be sure don't guess - you cant stop it quick enough to escape being burned

 

looks very neat, i know what you mean by crap wiring.....does anyone know whether the Mo Co did their own wiring harness or was it farmed out to an outside company? why i ask is you can still buy original wiring harness for your old Brit made by Lucas, best thing to do for an old bike IMHO

 

I like the multiple breakers for the purpose of keeping her running if there's ever a short in my lights or accessories circuit, ignition on a dedicated circuit will ensure I make it home without a tear down on the side of the road. And in case it's dark out and my lights circuit shorts, I have a Cyron headlight with high/low & an additional running light, that running light is fed by the ignition circuit, so as long as the bike runs, I have some kind of light up front.

I'm going to upload a few pics when I get back out there later. I aligned all my tabs before I sent the tanks for paint, so everything's a perfect fit. With the wire harness, it fits loosely inside of the tanks, with much room to spare. I'll show ya a bit later! Those plugs can actually be tucked under the dash too, which was my plan until mockup shown clearance wouldn't be an issue.