Wiring In A Volt Meter

[littlebill31]

Thanks Leo

 

[Norton7d]

Any wire after the switch thats is hot when the key is on will work. The closer to the switch the better. There is a three wire bundle coming from the key switch down into the headlight bucket. It will have a red wire, a brown wire and a blue or blue/yellow wire. The red is hot from the battery. The blue or blue/yellowwire is power to the tail light. The brown is power to everything else. Hook the + side of the volt gauge to the brown wire. Hook the - side of the gauge to a frame ground. On the wires for the bulb, hook one to the blue or blue/yellow wire, the other to a frame ground.
Hooked this way when you turn the key on the meter will display the voltage and the light will light up.
Hokking the meter + to the blue or blue/yellow wire will just tell you the voltage in the tail light circuit. Hooking the meter to the brown wire tells the voltage of all the rest of the electrical system. Much better that way.

I'm reviving another old thread here....regarding tapping into a hot wire, no matter where it is, how is that done?
So for the brown hot wire, are you trying to get the end of the gauge hot wire to get pushed down into an existing coupler?l which contains the brown wire? Or are you cutting the brown wire then splicing into it?

Any pics would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[peterg]

You could splice into the loom’s brown wire or remove the loom’s brown wire from the switch plug, remove the terminal, tie the loom’s brown wire to a new wire, crimp a new terminal onto the wires and plug the new terminal into the plug. Connect the loom plug to the switch plug.

 

[Norton7d]

You could splice into the loom’s brown wire or remove the loom’s brown wire from the switch plug, remove the terminal, tie the loom’s brown wire to a new wire, crimp a new terminal onto the wires and plug the new terminal into the plug. Connect the loom plug to the switch plug.

Thanks, that surely would be safest and long lasting method.

 

[5twins]

The type of connectors on the wires coming from your ignition switch will depend on what year the bike is. Later models had a 3 wire connector block but earlier models could have all individual or multi bullet connectors. That would actually make it easier to tap into. I tapped into the front brake light switch brown wire. On my '78, it was one of the 1st things that branched off the brown coming out of the ignition switch. It also only sees limited use (just when the front brake is applied) so I figured it would be a good spot. I set up the power wire on my voltmeter like this, so it could be tapped inline to the brake light switch brown wire .....

I did the same on my '83 but that hasn't worked out quite so well. The front brake light switch is many more splits or connections away from the brown coming out of the ignition switch on that bike. One of those splits or connections is to the turn signals so every time I turn them on, my voltmeter momentarily goes to zero, lol. I'm going to have to re-do this , moving the connection point up to the brown wire where it comes out of the ignition switch. That's really the only good spot on a Special with the 4 fuse box. It's the "cleanest" connection point available on the Special, with power coming from the battery and passing through only the main fuse and the ignition switch. Any other connection spot would have the power passing through 2 fuses and probably several splits too.

 

[XSLeo]

If your careful you can strip about a 1/2 inch of the insulation from the brown wire about an inch away from the switch. The positive wire from the meter, may need to extend this wire, gets wrapped around the bare spot on the brown wire. A bit of solder on this joint, wrap up with black tape or liquid tape.
This make a good solid connection with out disturbing the power flow through the brown wire.
Leo

 

[5twins]

A little update - here's my modded ignition switch plate on my '83. I added the brown wire pigtail for my voltmeter and the blue wire one to hook my recently added headlight on-off switch to .....

The switch plate itself also got modded so the tail light only comes on in the "Park" position now. The headlight on-off switch controls it's normal operation. To set this all up, I sort of mimicked how the '77 ignition and on-off switch are set up .....

 

[Mikey]

I just have mine read the battery voltage
I have it plugged into my battery maintainer plug as per gggGary's suggestion

 

[5twins]

That would mean it is on all the time and not switched with the key. What do you do, only plug it in when you go for a ride?

 

[Mikey]

I just have mine read the battery voltage
I have it plugged into my battery maintainer plug as per gggGary's suggestion

I made a plug for the volt meter to be able to just unplug it if need be

 

[Mikey]

That would mean it is on all the time and not switched with the key. What do you do, only plug it in when you go for a ride?

It has an on / off switch on the meter too and I do unplug it so If I forget to turn it off I'm covered

 

[ThatXS650Guy]

I just have mine read the battery voltage
I have it plugged into my battery maintainer plug as per gggGary's suggestion

I did the same. I unplug it when I park it and either plug back into the tender or leave it unplugged. The tenders I have been buying come with two battery connectors: one is a direct wire and one is a clamp type. I cut the plug off the clamps and reverse the wiring so I can use the plug for my voltmeter.
I do this with a few of my oft ridden bikes.

 

[Jim]

@Mailman connected his to the horn. Quick and easy.... no need to disassemble the bike for the wiring... and it shuts off with the key. Have a read here Mikey.