Z thou A1 loom

[RALPHARAMA]

I started to disassemble the loom on the zed tonight and started to create a new one. A lot of the wiring that starts in the headlamp in a multi block eg the idiot light 9 way block runs nearly the entire length of the loom, joins a soldered mess wrapped in PVC insulating tape and then splits into say three or four most of which seem to travel back up the loom to the head lamp again to join another multi block, bullets etc. I can see no reason for this and have started simplifying the loom. Am I making some crass error? Looking at the loom it seems to have been designed by soemone with shares in a copper factory, or am I missing something. I did for a while wonder if it was for current capacity and then realised that this didn't make sense either as these great long doubled up lengths are suddenly reduced to a single conductor, so I am stuck for any logical reason.

[Big Fluff]

VDUK
I've wired literally hundreds of bikes, mostly Kawasaki & Suzuki, over the last 20 years and understand your quest.!
However, what you're best doing, is to take an A3 photocopy of your schematic diagram and draw boxes/lines etc where the block connectors are. Hopefully this will give you an indication of where & why it's like that.

For example (Z900/1000).... In order for your headlamp bulb to accept power it has to travel a fair distance (which causes big voltage drops).
Power travels from the battery to the starter solenoid, then via the main fuse, into the main harness and to the ignition switch, then into the main harness and onto the RH bar switch (lights on/off), then back into the main harness and to the fusebox through the 10A lights fuse, then back into the main harness and on to your LH bar switch, back into the main harness and finally arrives at the bulb.... exhausted !
Suppose what I'm trying to say is if in doubt.... don't touch it. Or get someone experienced in wiring to make you a custom built harness if you want to cut down on some of the bulk.

[RALPHARAMA]

Hi

I have scanned the workshop manual's wiring diagram and photoshoped out bits I don't want eg Hazard lights, parking light. It was when I started to unravel the loom I that I realised that a high percentage of the cables made apparently unnecessarily long trips but I think that it may be done like that to reduce voltage drop. It begs the question of course as to why they didn't just use heavier cross sectional area cabling. Maybe it's for flexiblilty as I suppose there is a lot of movement at the head stock. I bet I'll have to order another shed load of cable then! I'm using modern thinwall wire so I should reduce the bulk a bit with that. After talking to the bod at VWP I think I'll solder the joints as Kawasaki did but use heat shrink with glue in it to seal them rather than the insulting tape favoured by Mr Kackasaki. I suspect that the tape was for ease of manufacture and cost or maybe they didn't have polyolefin in those day?

[HowieD]

Hi there,

I built a few Looms for my bike in its various incarnations. I ended up using relays for the Headlamps as I reckon the wigglies were routed through too many switches/Connections.

Ages ago there was some discussion about the selection of Main Beam from the Side light as it regulates a voltage spike or something stopping blown bulbs. But I haven't had any trouble with that happening.

There was one wire in my original Loom which did have to be a specific length. That was a red one used as an Ammeter Shunt. My bike was a Z1-R but I only have minimal instruments now so that wire is gone.

hope this is of some help.

Regards
H

[RALPHARAMA]

On the circuit diagram there is shown a half ohm wire would resistor (20w) in series with head lamp, before the beam selection switch, which a past owner has taken out of circuit. I had assumed when stripping the bike that it was a ballast resistor to do with the charging circuit and was now not needed. I always ride with the head lamp on and it hadn't blown since I have been riding the bike last year and I did replace the lamp with an H4 55/66watt as the 45w was dreadful. Not sure whether to put it back in circuit, I can't see any logical reason for it. I wonder if it was one of Mr Kawasakis efforts to cure bulb blowing?