I'm getting close to completion on my '76 CB550F. Engine removed, repainted, rebored. Frame painted, front brake rebuilt, new back tire, etc. etc. It has a new battery that I trickle charged for about 8 hours.
I spent a few hours cleaning the connections on the wiring harness, putting it on the bike and hooking the wires up. When I turn the key to the running position, no juice. When I turn it to "park" the tail light comes on. That's it.
My guess is that the ground wire at the coil is not getting an adequate connection to the frame. I scraped the paint off the frame before bolting the wire up with the coil mount. However I don't know why nothing else would work on the bike except that one light bulb.
In the headlight shell there are two unused connections. One is a brown wire, which I believe is supposed to be disconnected. The other is the wire to the clutch safety switch (red/green I think) which I capped off. My switch has been broken for awhile so I didn't put it on when I reassembled the bike.
Near the coils (that big bundle of wires that go into the black box), there's a green connector that's unused. I think that's supposed to be left that way too, looking at the wiring diagram.
By the way, the electrical stuff was working when I disassembled the bike.
Any suggestions on how to tackle this? I'd appreciate it.