Electrical noobs comedy of tail light errors

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nhridah

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so this is my first post so please go easy, but tell me if my etiquette is lacking. Anyways, ive got a 78 hardtailed bobber and the tail light has become my arch enemy. when i first got the bike it had a trailer style round light on there and it would constantly blow the bulbs so i researched and went with led and that fixed that. good. then i went through 3 more lights losing the covers rom vibrations or sometimes the entire light itself. its happened so often thats hows everyone in my riding circle knows me now. so i finally got a metal trailer light nylon screws, loctite, lock washers hooray all was fixed for a while. last ride was around christmas and i look down entire side mount plate light everything laying there dragging by the wires. the mount cracked at the weld. im assuming from vibrations. so ive now bought a new mount new light did all my other tricks to make sure this thing is going to stay on, get it all together proud of myself now, beating my chest going to turn it all on and bask in the red glow glory; i thought. turn it on and now nothing. i know my story is going on long enough here so ill just say a day and a half of redoing solder joints rewiring trying new bulbs all led me to the conclusion i had been beaten. so i got drunk and pouted. then it came to me why not touch a wire the the liht housing and then to the frame like i had done on my olld tractor and voila it worked!!!!

so now to my question.... i bought a fancy new side mount plate light bracket and its powdercoated, im assuming this is why im getting no ground. if i grind off the powdercoat at the connecting points will that fix it or should i run a cheater wire from the light to the frame?

many thanks in advance and as i said its my first post so i want to take as second and thank you all for answering many questions for me in other threads, this place has been a wealth of knowledge for me
 
The stock XS650 has many parts mounted in rubber. There is a reason for that. Your hardtail may or may not have rubber mounted parts. Its only common sense to always use rubber mounting whenever possible on these bikes, for obvious reasons.

So, make sure to use some type of rubber mounting on your new licence plate/tail light holder.

It was always common practice with cars and trucks to use the steel body/frame as the return ground path, back to the battery, for electrical devices. On a motorcycle that has lots of parts rubber mounted, that method does not work.

On your hardtail (or any XS650) you should just forget about trying to use the frame,steel components as a ground return. Simply run a 14 gauge black wire from the back end of the bike and from the front end of the bike. Connect those 2 black wires to the same point on the frame where you connect the negative ground cable (bare metal on the frame.) Then you can connect lights or any electrical component directly to that 14 gauge black wire.

Its not a "cheater" wire from your new tail light. Its simply the correct way to wire it. Some lights/components have a ground wire when you buy it. Others don't come with a ground wire. If your new light does not have a ground wire, then you must add one. Yes, the new ground wire must connect to bare metal on the light.
 
good thing i bought extra wire, thanks for the help ill run one tonight and try to find some rubber washers or something for the pate mount.
 
Welcome to the site. Post a picture of what you have so we can steal your ideas!
 
Hi nhridah and welcome,
as a newbie you may not be aware that an XS650 engine also makes a pretty good paint shaker.
Like they said, rubber mount everything and run ground wiring to each electrical thing on the bike.
 
here she is. and yea there is some slight virbation, after a bit of riding my under carriage is a little numb, but coming off of some old ironhead sportsters im used to it.

bk.jpg

bike.jpg
 
Proper engine tuning will help with vibes. The carb sync is very important in tuning. With both cylinders pulling the same the vibes almost vanish.
Leo
 

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