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Mattylight Barebones Bare Bones
1977 Kawasaki Kz650C1 for mynewskiemail
Kz650C Kz650 C1 Kz 650 C 650C1 650C

 

I have an 81 kz440 ldt and the entire wiring harness is toast, need to go barebones and rewire the whole thing. Found a couple diagrams that should help as far as the model year, but should i try and salvage wiring from the original harness or go for all new wires? if so what gage should i shoot for? Total newbie here and this rebuild is breaking me. Thank you in advance for any info!

I use a combination of both. There's plenty of good wire in an old harness, but you have to know where to look for bad wires. Most of the bad wires will be anywhere the harness had to traverse moving frame parts, so the worst spot is between the main frame and handle bars on the left side of the neck. Nothing in there should be re-used without very close inspection.

Also, anywhere the wire terminated you might have some dirt or corrosion so I will cut off connectors plus a couple inches before crimping on a new connector. If the wire and connector look very good, like new, then I may re-use the wire and connector as is, if it's convenient.

When copper breaks inside the insulator it creates a bump. Any wire with bumps in it are suspect. You can get bumps from other things, but without cutting it open it's hard to say what lies under the insulator.

Thank you very much! And i found the diagram you made up for CoffeeBrake and i think that will work best for what i need. To get it registered in Oregon i just need a headlight, taillight, and a horn, plus a license plate light, I can do away with turn signals for now, as long as i dont "ride at night" and a rear brake light. Its braking my heart not seeing her on the road. Ill pulll the old harness apart and inspect all the wires and see what is still usable.

Excellent. Good luck on the rewire! Let us know if you run into any snags.

I most likely will, Wiring makes me feel like a caveman. Wish i had a good knack for it. Thanks so much for your help!

On my '81 KZ750H I have a blue wire that runs from the ignition cover on the right side to the tach, my question is can I delete this wire or is it for my oil pressure switch? My oil light is in the tach which is why I am curious.

Yes, that blue...usually blue with red stripe...wire is for the oil pressure switch. Removing that wire will disable the oil pressure warning light.

Mattylight Barebones Bare Bones
Kawasaki Kz400 / Kz440 for Dirty0ldMan. (0ld with a zero)
Kz 400 Kz 440

On the 1979 KZ750 B4 Twin for Frank Parts.

Where is the Starter Solenoid? And what is the BLK/ wire coming from the REG/REC, is it just BLK or BLK/COLOR?

COOL WRITE UP VERY HELPFUL! Thank you.

If there isn't a starter solenoid, then there probably isn't a starter motor either, and the diagram is probably for a kick start only (no electric start).

The black wire is probably a ground & could be black-yellow or connected to Bk-Y. The ground wire circuit on Kawasaki motorcycles is usually black-yellow. A black ground wire is sometimes used for some components in addition to the Bk-Y circuit.

In general, in most if not all of his diagrams the hot wires or battery pos (+) wires are in the upper portion of the diagrams, and the ground or battery neg (-) are in the lower portion of the diagrams.
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