Proper wire

[crashradius]

Greetings
Does anyone have a source for the proper size and colors of wire as well as connectors. I have an 1982 R65 and the harness needs some love.
Thanks Crash

[Barry]

Not much help where you are but you need a local place similar to this that sells automotive electrical stuff.

http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/

[BPT]

I was able to find GXL wire for a reasonable price on ebay. It depends on how proper you need to be. Finding the exact colors with the stripes won't be easy but you can get close.

There are a couple of places that specialize in British/Euro wiring and you can get close with them but might not be cheap. Sorry, I don't have the links on my phone.  Snowbum has links to one or two places, I believe.

I was able to find connectors to match the OEM BMW dash light/accessory switches from Mauser.  Some of the other connectors seem to be unique to BMW and not so easy to find.

You can go blind searching for the exact stuff but it's not as hard to just get quality stuff and make it work.  I wanted to re-do some things also but opted for just cleaning when it came to the connectors. 

Also, the difficult connectors I'm talking about are the plastic housing bits. If you just mean the metal terminals, you can start with Cycle Terminal or Eager Beaver.  All kinds of things there to get you going and/or confuse you.

[Justin B.]

I rewired the engine compartment (made new harnesses) on a '73 Mercedes 450SE and got all the wire I needed from delcity.net.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

I have read of some people going to junk yards and scavenging wire from German cars.

[Barry]

Whatever you do  don't use wire from a 92 - 97 Mercedes of any model.  They had this crazy idea in Europe of making wiring insulation biodegradable but got their sums wrong on the timescale so that the wiring literally fell apart while the cars were still in use. Even when replaced under warranty they still put the same rubbish wiring back in.  I don't know if it affected other German brands but it seems a possibility as Mercedes don't make wire, they buy it in.

[georgesgiralt]

Hello
For the connectors housing try BMW. They have the boxes available and even the pins.
I do not know sellers in the USA, but I would check at people doing repair on old BMW bikes. They should have devised something for getting the proper wires...
Also, depending of the scale of the needed repair, consider a new harness from BMW. Last time I checked, they where relatively cheap (considering the trouble to get the parts and time spent) and available.
Just my 2 cents.

[BPT]

Justin found a good one, Delcity has tons of stuff.  Two of the more "specialty" places I was trying to remember are Wire Barn and Rhode Island Wiring. 
And here is a link from Snowbum's wiring page, as usual, more info than you'll ever need:
http://bmwmotorcycletech.info/wires&codes.htm

[Tony Smith]

I have read of some people going to junk yards and scavenging wire from German cars.

I did a significant amount of re-wiring on a R90 once with wire salvaged from VW kombis - they use similar colour coding, generally similar cross-section and have a wonderful 2.5 metre run under the floor from the engine compartment to the cab.

Connectors, not so much. I did find some two way connectors that were similar but for any more than two I used whatever the local car place could supply.

[BPT]

As far as service goes, I can vouch for Cycle Terminal.  I recently had a  slight glitch with an order and he not only made it right but made it better.

I've used them mainly for shrink tubing, connectors and wire covering.

[Matt Chapter]

Depending on how bad your wiring harness is you might just consider finding a "new" one.  I melted mine a few years ago and replaced the whole thing.  It was a much better idea than trying to build one from scratch.

[Tony Smith]

As far as service goes, I can vouch for Cycle Terminal.  .

Website?

[wilcom]

As far as service goes, I can vouch for Cycle Terminal.  .

Website?

cycleterminal.com

Just visited them and they are on vacation

[Justin B.]

Another great source I have used on various automotive rewiring adventures was www.waytekwire.com

[crashradius]

Thank you for all the replies and some great sources, now it's pick a wire time.
Crash