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Help with where to start.....
- Thread starter JRWilliamsQM
- Start date
Try these schematics. I think your bike is an 80 or 81. Are the VIN's on the motor and neck the same?
http://www.xs650.com/media/80-xs650g.362/
http://www.xs650.com/media/81-xs650h-sh.363/#media
http://www.xs650.com/media/80-xs650g.362/
http://www.xs650.com/media/81-xs650h-sh.363/#media
The wiring changes I can see point to someone trying to replace the original fuse block with another. But it looks like the job was never completed and what is done was done badly. You'll want to scrap that fuse set-up and change to modern automotive blade type fuses. The bundle of wires at the left in your last pic, the ones with a couple blue wire twist connectors, were originally connected to the fuses. Looks like they've just been connected together now so you have no fusing going on there. The skinny red wire with the short green section at the end appears to have been added to the original heavy positive battery cable and hooked directly to the battery positive terminal. It's not heavy enough, as evidenced by how it's insulation is melting up near the connection to the original. You need a heavy battery cable here because it feeds the starter and that sucks lots of juice. Here's how the original fuses were wired. You can probably find most of the wires in that bundle on the left .....
You may need to run a red wire like the one coming off your positive battery cable from the battery positive to your main fuse. Originally, there was a wire like this splitting off your positive battery cable, but it may be gone now.
You may need to run a red wire like the one coming off your positive battery cable from the battery positive to your main fuse. Originally, there was a wire like this splitting off your positive battery cable, but it may be gone now.
Take that skinny red wire with the little green wire at the end right off the positive battery cable. If you unwrap all the electrical tape from the connection, you'll probably find it just bolted onto the original cable eye. Feed the pos. cable up through that oval hole with the grommet and it will just reach the positive terminal on your battery .....
They(the PO) may have bought the wrong battery with the posts reversed with the ground going to the right and the positive going to the left side.
If Jordan is lucky when he unwraps that mess of tape he will find the bulge is the original eyelet for the positive and the pigtail is bolted to it.
Your faster fingers beat me again 5twins.
If Jordan is lucky when he unwraps that mess of tape he will find the bulge is the original eyelet for the positive and the pigtail is bolted to it.
Your faster fingers beat me again 5twins.
angus67
Welder's penetrate deeper!!
No oil sight glass either
JRWilliamsQM
XS650 Enthusiast
Thanks for all the assistance. I will be looking into swapping to blade fuses today and see if it fixes the light issue. As well as pulling out all the battery wired to properly replace them. Also, the guy thought 1981 who I bought it from but the emblems don't natch up with the 81 special. There isn't much info I have on vin yet. They match but it's 2F0-216***. Only 9 digits total. Could this have been a Canadian model??? Thanks again.
Frame / Eng No 2F0 - 20
Model Code 3G1
Model XS 650 SG
Year 1980
Info ALLOY WHEEL CDI
Model Code 3G1
Model XS 650 SG
Year 1980
Info ALLOY WHEEL CDI
Hi JR and welcome,
photo shows lift-off seat, aluminum grab-rail and disk rear brake. Only a 1980 XS650 Special had that particular mix of features.
[EDIT check the photo of the 1980 XS650SG in Skull's identification sticky ENDEDIT]
The single petcock small tank is stock for that bike but almost everything on an XS650 will swap between years and models so you can't be sure.
Like your bike's artillery wheels say "Canadian" (US models usually had steel rimmed megaspokes) but what appears to be a US model 55mph redlined speedo instead of the Canadian Metric one says "USA".
A thing to check is if the carbs slow running needles still have the EPA mandated brass sealing plugs over them.
If so the first thing to do is rip them out of there and toss them. If they are still in place the carbs will still be set impossibly lean AND the slow running system can't have EVER been cleaned properly.
Last edited:
JRWilliamsQM
XS650 Enthusiast
Yea. I'll have to maybe buy an opposite post battery? Or redo the terminal wire correctly because the battery I have for it won't reach as is after I removed all the excess downgraded wiring. She won't fire up so I'm thinking I'll have to rip her completely apart and clean her inside and out.
Yes.
JRWilliamsQM
XS650 Enthusiast
So I've got the correct gage wire and a new fuse box so I will start re wiring the bike and see if I can't get her to turn over at at least run the lights without blowing a wire.
I was pretty sure the '80 was the only Special with a disk rear. Most common in U.S. anyway.
What I would do is buy a new harness, probably from Mikes and use that, using your wiring as it is and the schematic as a guide. It isn't a complicated harness at all, and chances are your connector shells are broken from and the connections at the connectors themselves are probably suspect. Eliminate all that in one swell foop. And it would probably take longer to dress all the connections, which you'd have to do for reliability, than just replace the harness. Take lots of pics of the routing first, if it's any good. Otherwise go by other's photos and the routing diagram in the manual.
What I would do is buy a new harness, probably from Mikes and use that, using your wiring as it is and the schematic as a guide. It isn't a complicated harness at all, and chances are your connector shells are broken from and the connections at the connectors themselves are probably suspect. Eliminate all that in one swell foop. And it would probably take longer to dress all the connections, which you'd have to do for reliability, than just replace the harness. Take lots of pics of the routing first, if it's any good. Otherwise go by other's photos and the routing diagram in the manual.
Hi xjwmx,
checking the photos in Skull's sticky, the '78 (SE) and '79 (SF) Specials also had the 16" artillery wheel and rear disk brake.
The '80 (SG) Special is the only year that had those features combined with a lift-off-seat frame.
Don't have a full-blown Special w/o that ...
Not always the great easy fix. Every block connector on that new harness must plug into a connector for every separate unit and sub-harness. So, those extra connectors ( the ones not on the new harness) must be good or repaired or altered to a different type. I save, repair, the old harness, never had one beat me yet.
Scott
Whatever.
Whichever
