Topic: CB500K Electrical Wiring

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Work on the '72 CB500K I have is coming along; I've gotten to the point where it's starting to look like a motorcycle again, and I'm trying to put the new wiring harness on, but I've hit a snag from the coils to the main harness. The schematic shows a B/W wire coming off each coil, and then a Blue one and a Yellow one. In the harness I have, the two aftermarket coils have a white wire and a yellow wire. I'm pretty sure the WHITE wire goes to the B/W wire, and the Yellow wire goes to the yellow wire in the harness - but as you can see in the pic, the ends are wrong - the Yellows are male, and the B/W and White wires are female. This in itself is not a problem since I've made plenty of connections on other bikes, but before I go cutting things I wanted to ask the forum - is that what I should do here? Everything else seems to match up just fine, and again I'm 98% sure that's what I need to do - but what do you think...? And where would the other yellow and white wires from the other coil go??  Just add a double female connector?

[scottly]

I would plug both yellow coil wires into the B/W double female harness wire, and the coil white wires into the blue and yellow wires that go to the points.

[bryanj]

As the HT is double ended and dont rely on a ground what was suggested will work fine, trouble with aftermarket coils, what ohm rating are they as 550 can be finicky

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Scottly - DOH! Yes, that makes sense! The coils don't care what color the wire is...! (I've been 'following' colors for too long...

Bryan, I think it's 3 ohms, but I'm not sure.

[scottly]

The left side coil should go to the blue points wire, and the right side coil should go to the yellow points wire, IIRC. One thing about Honda wiring is that the side of a connection that is the power source, like the B/W wire, will have a female connector which is insulated. A male connector is exposed, and if unplugged it could short to ground, blowing a fuse. Power comes out of a female and goes into a male, if that makes sense.

[bryanj]

If it was a single outlet coil it would matter as the coil needs to be grounded to spark, Lucas coils on old british singles would overheat and fail if the primary was connected the wrong way round, yes i have the tee for that

[HondaMan]

If they are indeed 3-ohm coils, the bike won't be able to support them when the headlight is ON. I make a 2-ohm Resistor Pack for that if you find you need it. Somehow those didn't make it to my new website, need to go work on that one of these days...

[Dr. Frankenstein]

I'll see what happens; I can always move up to those two-outlet, make-your-own-wire 5-ohm ones if I need to.

[MauiK3]

I've always wondered if changing all the lighting to LED would free up some (a little) power in the system, I'm sure someone knows the answer to this.
I put LED's in my gauge lights but that's it.