wiring confusion

[Darwin_R65]

Hi all,

trying to work out an issue on my bike. I replaced the ignition switch, now normally i would be anal about writing down the colours and what terminal they connect to, and/or take a photo, but the dangers of doing things when tired, I just pulled the wires off, and thought I'd refer to the manual.

My ignition switch has 5 wires connecting to it, Red, Green, Grey, Yellow/White, and a Green/Black. The factory manual does not show the green/black, and after experimenting I need both the Green/black and Green for the engine to start.

I know the Red is power from the battery.
Grey provides instrument lighting, etc.
Yellow / white goes to the dip switch, but the green and the green/black are confusing when not shown on the diagram, and they appear to be factory crimps, not an aftermarket crimp. I need both green and green/black with 12 volts to start the bike.

My other issue is this bike has a hazard flasher circuit which is not shown in the factory manual either.

Does anyone else have this 5th wire to their ignition switch as well?

cheers
John

[flybot]

I thought I could help you out but my '83 is different. Different color wires and only  4, not 5.

[nhmaf]

It may also be that the wiring of the US/North American models *might* have slightly different color code usage from your Oz-bike, but I will include some pics I took of my ignition key switch connections on my 1982 R65LS a few years back.
I only have the (4) wires on my bike.  It might be that the Hazard flasher additioni you have required use of that additional keyswitch terminal.

The green wire with black stripe should not need to be connected to the keyswitch for basic operation of the bike - it is a switched power to be connected to an optional accessory voltmeter (or you can use it to power some other accessory instrument, etc. as long as current draw is not much).   Note that this green/black wire is NOT connected to my keyswitch - even though the keyswitch does have a spare/open terminal on it.

It was pretty grimy in there when I opened it up..






Hope that this helps!

[Bob_Roller]

I vaguely remember one of our members saying that the Euro version bikes had a key position to allow the bike to be ridden with the headlight off, just the small bulb under the headlight would be on .

The small bulb, is powered by a green / black wire .

Don't know if this helps, or makes the situation a bit less clear .

[Barry]

vaguely remember one of our members saying that the Euro version bikes had a key position to allow the bike to be ridden with the headlight off, just the small bulb under the headlight would be on.
 

Yes,  After "ignition on" the next position on a Euro switch powers the head light pilot bulb, instruments and tail light. To save a few amps I ride like this with a 20W halogen lamp in the pilot bulb holder.

Maybe the replacement switch is a different version to the original.


A Euro switch has 5 positions :-

1  Parking lights

2  Off

3  Run (ignition only no lights)

4  pilot lights

5  Full Head light


From what I can see on the diagrams a US switch it has only 3 positions:-

1  Parking Lights

2  Off

3  Run
 

What I can't find until I get home from work is a decent Euro wiring diagram to try and make sense of your connections. As far as I can see for ignition you only need the +12V red wire  on #30 and the green wire on #15 but I think you are saying that doesn't work. Is it possible you only have +12v on the green/black wire and not on the Red  ?

The grey wire should go on #58 and the yellow/White wire on #56

I did find one wiring diagram that showed both 3 position and 5 position switches having the same 4 terminal numbers and identical 4 wire connections.

[nhmaf]

My Clymer Manual wiring diagram only shows 4 wires to the ignitions switch, and makes no distinction between US and other market region models.

My Haynes manual does show 5 wires for UK-only wiring option on the ignition switch - the 5th wire being yellow and going to terminal 56 on the DIP/headlight switch for a low beam function.

From the Haynes book, in the ignition switch:

Terminal #30:  Red
Terminal #58: Gray
Terminal #15:  Green
Terminal #56: Green with purple stripe
(UK only) Terminal #56 is shown with the yellow wire spliced into the same terminal, but I suspect that it could be a separate physical terminal, just that the switch used as multiple connections for that switch position.   It does show that the UK switch has 4 operating positions whereas the US switch only has 2 operating positions.  But it doesn't provide more detail than that.

I would offer to dig into mine with a multimeter to probe out the various terminal connections, but it is a pain in the arse to get get into there on the old LS, and you may have a different part number for the ignition switch itself.

[Barry]

I checked all the diagrams I have and everything I said in my previous post is correct.  There are no R65 ignition switches showing more than 4 terminal numbers. There are up to 6 wires shown on Euro models though with a pair of reds doubled up on #30 and Yell/White + Green/Violet doubled up on #56. I guess as NHMAF suggests there might be 2 spades for #56

[tvrla]

Number 30 is actually two tied-together spades going to the same place. I'd assume the emergency flasher gets plugged in there - the second spade is normally unused. That makes sense to me since it would be unswitched and available at all times.

You'd just have to make sure it didn't get activated accidentally and run down the battery.