I'm starting to get a hang of this whole wiring and electricity thing. It no longer seems like the dark art of wrangling angry pixies. It's making more sense to me and I feel more like I sort of know what I'm doing.
Before, I had the stator hooked up directly to the coil. That let me see a nice blue spark when I spun it up, but if the bike actually ran, I'd have no way of shutting it off besides the petcock, and this thing probably runs forever on a couple spoonfuls of gas. Today, I actually wired up the run/stop/run switch on the bars. I got to use my fancy connectors that I ordered from treats and I dipped everything in marine grease in hopes that the corrosion demons will leave my wiring alone.
I had a bit of an electrical epiphany today. I learned long ago that electricity follows the path of least resistance to the ground and blah blah blah. I passed the tests and all that, but it's a whole different thing when you see a working example in the real world. The way the kill switch works is not by breaking the connection from the stator to the coil/spark plug. It actually just provides an alternate and easier path to the ground. Rather than do all the work of going through the coil and spark plug, the current takes the path that has way less resistance and goes right through the regular copper wire, through the switch on the bars, right to the ground, nothing slowing it down. When that switch is flipped, the easy path to the ground is shut and the current has no choice but to go through the coil, to the plug and make a spark. Definitely more resistance on that path, but with no other option to get to ground, that's all it can do.
This is great because now I have an easy way of turning off the engine before it runs out of gas.
There is no key or ignition on this bike so, I added a second kill switch in a somewhat hidden place in hopes that people won't be starting it while it's locked up in the street.I wired it inline, right before the coil so I hope this doesn't mess with anything involving the spark. I'm sort of worried I'm making things too complicated. Also, the switch is for AC stuff, so I'm not sure if it's a great idea having half of it wired up inline like that. I guess I'll find out. It won't be too hard to fix, I did leave myself some extra wire.
Also, while I was getting into it, I shortened the fuel and oil lines a little bit so they are a little further away from the rear tire. They're still real close though. I think I'd like to put some sort of fender in there at some point, or maybe cover the hoses somehow. If I mounted the tank on the cross bar, I wouldn't really have that problem anymore.
I also scrounged up some hardware to let me take the old airbox bracket off. The bike never came with the stock airbox so it was nice to take it off the bike. It was threaded and held the carb in place, but a couple nuts and washers from my stash hold the carb now.
I used the multimeter a bunch today. I checked continuity the whole time I was setting up the kill switch and then I also used it to check that the left brake lever will actually be able to make the brake light come on. When you pull the lever, it closes the circuit. When let go, the lever opens the circuit. The right side lever has a broken wire, not sure how I'm going to fix that. Maybe some soldering will need to be done.
At Home Despot, I found some cotter pins. I know the bike probably wants something metric, but the 3/32" ones fit fine, if a little loose.
Playing with the lights, I figured out the general scheme of things. The yellow wire is the running light, the red wire is the bright or brake and the black wire is the ground. So now I just need to bolt the lights and regulator to the bike and wire them up.
After the lights, I want to change the transmission fluid and then I should be good to go. I mean, the turn signals don't work, the tires should be replaced, the seat is torn, the horn is at the bottom of the parts box and there's probably other things horribly wrong with the honda express, but whatever. Those are just details. I just want to ride.
In other news. I made congee for the first time. I put in dried shrimp. I like it.
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