Painting/powdercoating bars?

[Jawknee21]

I read yesterday that painting the bars might cause the starter not to work. Maybe Im wrong. Does this apply to powdercoating? What will I need to do to make sure it will still work with powdercoated bars?

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[jayel]

scrape off the paint/Pcoat at the switches and the riser clamps and run a wire from them to frame ground (bar risers are rubber insulated) or run separate ground wires to the switches

 

[srinath]

I believe the start button presses 2 terminals together. I think the old days of pressing one terminal to ground were widely considered obsolete in the 70's.

I know cos I have made and sold powdercoated bars for a 90's bike - a GS500 and never had an issue, so much so I never even thought about it till now, and I have seen the old style where they hit ground with the terminal.

You cant just scrape off the powdercoat @ the switch if it will be needed to have ground.
You have to scrape off the powder @ the triple clamp.
You also have to wire across the handle bar to ground, cos the rubber mount implies its not electrically contacting ... its contacting only via rubber.

Cool.
Srinath.

 

[Jawknee21]

It worked fine before with no paint on the bars. Mine is an 83. Should it have that problem? I don't even know if it's going to not work. I just wanted to check ahead of time. Should I just not paint the middle or a part where the switch would go?

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[jayel]

Should I just not paint the middle or a part where the switch would go?

may work fine then but, the STOCK 82/83 xs has a ground wire to the right side handle bar switch which would ground the left handle bar switch thru the CHROME handle bar doesn't look like your switches are still stock so who knows?