Converting your 78 harness to except the 81 ignition and charging system isn't hard to do.
The ignition may be the easy part. You need a few things to make it work. The 80 up bikes all used the TCI, some used a 6 wire TCI box, some a 7 wire TCI box. Either will work. So to list the parts,
TCI box
Stator
Rotor
Coil.
The stator for an 80 up will have the pick ups mounted on it. The pick up will be the black oval thing on the stator. It has a wire bundle coming out with the other stator wire bundle. This bundle has 3 wires. These wires hook to the TCI box with a 3 wire plug.
The TCI box has connections to hook a coil to. The points used two single coils, the TCI used one coil with two outputs.
Once you get these things hooked together you need to run a wire to both the TCI box and coil from the red/white wire that on the 78 harness sent power to the coils. It has a two place connector, use one place for the TCI box, the other for the coil.
If the TCI box you get has 7 wires, the extra wire is a black/white wire and hooked to the side stand relay so if you put the bike in gear with the side stand down the engine will quit. Cap this extra wire off. It won't be used.
See easy right.
Now on the charging system. The wire bundle coming up from the stator has 3 white wires, a green, a brown, and yellow, The blue one isn't for the charging but the neutral light. The yellow goes to the safety relay.
With the 80 up reg/rec it has 3 whites, a green, a brown, a red, a black. To hook this to the stator,
Reg/rec------------------stator
3 whites-----------------3 whites
Green--------------------green
Brown-------------------brown
Red----------------------battery +
black---------------------battery -
Once you hook the two browns, one from each the reg/rec and stator, you need to run a brown wire from the connection to power after the switch.
If you study a few diagrams you will see how this is done. I'll post up a good one that you can use. It has the basic points and separate reg and rec with upgrades in boxes. Just swap boxes to match what you have.
I'll post pics to show you a few of the parts. A 80 up reg/rec, A TCI unit, and a pic of a stator with the pickup on it.
Leo
