New tail light wiring advice

[Lluber]

As with most thing on my 83 Xs650 im not sure what I'm doing.. Thanks to this forum I'm quickly learning a lot.. and as my bike arrives piece by piece from the mail man its getting assembled and starting to take shape. Yesterday my new tail light arrived and Im not exactly sure how to wire it up. I have (3) wires coming off the new tail light red, yellow and black..

My plan is to cut off the stock harness, and match colors from OEM wires to the new tail light wires. Is this the correct way? will I have extra wires? excuse my ignorance but Im learning all of this.

as always thanks!

 

[Nasty N8]

Matching colors won't work the stock wiring uses all kinds of different colors. There are a few wiring diagrams on here to help you get it straightened out but you need black ground one running light and one from you brake switches.

 

[weekendrider]

Or better just look see where the wires go. Some take off to the turn signals, the others go to the tail light. Good thing about the 83 is you have extras.
To determine what is what on your new light just run some jumper wires from the battery.
I'd start with black being ground or neg then touch the other two wires with the positive wire. The bright one is the brake wire.

 

[Lluber]

when I took off the stock tail light, and winkers I taped and labeled them.. on my stock tail light there is this white harness which If i remember correctly had like 6 wires running into it. seemed a little excessive.. so its gotta be some combo of the wires going into the stock tail light harness. I'll poke around a little and see if I can find a diagram explaining it. just wanted to see if anyone knew off the top of their noggin.

thanks guys. @Weekendrider you seem to be everywhere on this forum, like a xs650 batman doling out good advice no matter the problem or question. You've already given me some excellent advice on other problems I've had. thanks again!

 

[weekendrider]

I also get confused and spout bull shit at times so beware.

 

[Lluber]

noted.. So far you've been spot on. Even if you were off I wouldn't know.. Tell me more about those muffler bearings and bubble water for my level again!

 

[weekendrider]

BWHAHAHAHA

 

[aldo5468]

Color code on '83 should be blue = taillight, yellow = brake light, black = ground. Per above advice, brake light should be brighter than taillight, so you do need to test the leads on your new light assembly as recommended above to ID which is which.