CMC is the standard for learning on vintage Honda’s- they’ve taught me that diagnosis and troubleshooting your vintage Honda is not a wall stopping you but a hill to be climbed…And its great to stand on top of that hill with your engine ticking! Thanks guys!
Brenden is right on the mark about the fear and loathing folk like me feel when being forced to mess with a bike’s wiring, especially the accursed headlight bucket junctions. I’m recommissioning a ‘71 CB500 four and had no choice but to start disconnecting stuff when I realised the left and right hand controls would need to be replaced. I spent as much time with pen and paper documenting what connected to what and labelling connections as I did with a spanner / screwdriver. Which wasn’t time wasted since the colour coding on one of the new controls isn’t as per the model’s wiring diagram. Watching this video multiple times gives me just enough confidence to start connecting everything when the forks come back form the hard-chromers and I get a new top forkbridge, So another huge Thank You to Brenden and the other Common Motor folk for helping me out, just as you did with your tail light circuit and back brake etc videos.
I worked at a Honda dealer in the 70s. After school I would assemble bikes out of the crates. The bars an turn signals were not connected, so I had to wire them up. DANG, they were real easy to do when the wires were nice and soft. Good video.
Good video! I love the vintage Bikes, the simplistic design and ease of diagnostic repairs! I've totally rewired a couple old XJ650's, such a pleasure.
I am currently restoring a CB250 k4, and this video has helped me so much and taken all the fear out of connecting the wires back together again. Great work 👏👏
Glad this video exists🦇✨️ I already had to go through the trouble of teaching myself where all the wires go with a diagram, but this visual aid is sure to be incredibly helpful for people 🌱
although initially this gave me extreme anxiety watching you blindly unplug everything, you cleared up sooo much confusion for me. cant wait to do this on my XL175 thanks a ton for the video
I am really glad that I found your channel. I am probably about to buy a '75 CB550F. I will undoubtedly be ordering some parts and tools from you once I have a better idea of what the bike needs. All of your videos are extremely helpful!
Thank you for this very nice video,I salute you Brendan,one of the smartest motorcycle blogger,you are really helping lots of bikers that dont know much about bikes like me lol"take care.....
Great stuff y’all! I wish there was a video on how to swap the wiring for LED buckets and lights. Especially with the diode… I’m still unable to get all the lights to work right
My first time coming across this video and im a new owner of an 83 honda shadow vt500c and besides some of the obvious differences my bucket has the same color combos and some different i think this video can help me figure out two random wires not connected still more trial and error till i get a full print of the wiring set up color ways
Hey Brendan, Thanks for the video. Far less confusing now! I have a vintage '79 Suzuki GS500 and I recently changed to a digital speedo. One little issue I'm having is with my Neutral light, after the ign. is switched off the Neut. light stays on. When Ign is off and shifted out of Neut then Neut light cuts out. Before I cut the blue Neut light gauge and the 6 gear wires out of the old speedo(LED unit) an orange (12v pos) wire linked them all. Also a black/white wire, probably ground, was connected to the LED unit. I connected all 7 wires straight to their assigned wires blocked both orange and black/white. All gears and Neut lights show on the new unit display. Tomorrow I'll go out and disassemble the nest like you showed here and test the grounds and pos's and see where that blue Neut wire is actually going. If you Brendan or anybody else has a suggestion on why the N stays lit please comment I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks!!
Great video just acquired a 72 cb 175 with a mess of wiring. Motor was toast I found a great condition cm200 motor I just put in slight differences between motor mounts but it’s the burn orange and white cb had to buy it lol thanks
I have a 1980 gl1100 that had a fairing and I’m just going to have the head light and leaving the fairing off but it seems like there’s too many wires to fit in the bucket, I might do like you did and take all the wires off and start from scratch, thanks for the video
This is very helpful. I've recently got a 1975 CB400F, and my main concerne is that it has the "old" on/off light switch on the right handle, and the hi/lo beam on the left handle. Any helpful tips? Thank you
Great set of videos on vintage bikes. If you are able... need some help on a C90 cub. 86 vintage, 12v and CDI system. There's a white wire with a black line that starts from the 3 pin regulator and heads to the headlight high/low beam part. Any idea what the purpose of this wire? I've upgraded to a 4 pin newer reg/rec unit and kept this wire disconnected. My headlights don't work although AC supply reach the yellow wire in the light switch(bottom half, for P and Headlight). This white the black line has been an absolute enigma to me. Can't seem to figure out it's purpose and how the light circuit work.
Thanks for this video CMC! Super helpful. I was wondering if y’all had any luck with an LED headlight alternative for the SL/CL 175 and the SL350? These models have the smaller 5 1/4” headlights and LED would be much better for safety reasons. Thanks!
Does turn signal switch wire from turn signal switch need to run independently from indicator box and correlating turn signal wires (front and back) run directly to indicator box? Thanks for your time
Very good, clean video for newbies like me! Thank you for your work! Did you ever consider work with smaller Honda Twins like CB125T or are they not popular in the US?
I have a 1973 Honda CB 200 I bought a right bar hand switch for the headlights, dimmer and old stuff, but mine mine was a 9 water set app and then when I got so many 6 water set up. How do I get it to work for my bike?
Very nice video. As in my project, all of that birds nest still looks like heXX! And with myT120, I would like a much bigger headlite bucket to at least STUFF the wiring into….
I require a rectifier and regulator that's joined together as one for my 1971 Honda CB 175 to upgrade it where can I get one and how much are they thanks Phil
I thankyou so much for doing that video . I have tried to follow wiring diagrams ,but my brain wont work that way . Having it shown i can follow your lead . Its not that im lazy to follow diagram my brain just does not compute . Im sure i can sort out my headlight bucket , and get back on track . Once again thankyou .
Just went through mine (successfully!) yesterday. CL100-- its all in the bucket. Do you have a resource for good quality bullet terminals? I wound up going to my local scooter shop after finding nothing but pretty low quality replacement options, none of which actually "fit" "correctly"
We actually sell the great made-in-Japan hero brand bullet connectors on the website. Awesome connectors, just make sure you have a good pair of bullet connector crimps to install them. Thats the key.
Now I only have 1 white wire that is headlight .a big black triple plug ,if it was for indicators would it b same on other side. I have a feeling when I get to turn key on . I'm going to have a multiple component meltdown .
Did that once. Disconnected everything without marking it "I'll just remember it".. Right. Took a month in my spare time to put it all back and working. Never again.
I dont know why the wiring wont match up I should have taken more notice when unplugging , but I was hoping it would be straight forward. This bike has been a jinx . In 2 years I've done many 20 k . I'm a verry impulsive guy . I know a cliff it can fly off.
Well now I'm fkd. 20 wires in the loom . 31 wires to find a partner for. I have to thank the parts supplier for supplying wrong hand controls. Now I guess il have to buy another set When your in NZ 2SETS IS DAMM EXPENSIVE.
It's all fairly self explanatory, until you get an aftermarket switch that's not 100 percent correct as far as the colors go. In that case, you break out the multimeter.
Bought my Honda XL75 for $100. The wires in the headlight bucket nearly caught on fire, so i disconnected them all, so the wires cant talk to each other, and kill the engine. Blinkers and such are gone anyway. Who the F**k came up with the idea of so many wires anyway? I dont need that crap.
This is what everyone needed. No sarcasm. No irony.
CMC is the standard for learning on vintage Honda’s- they’ve taught me that diagnosis and troubleshooting your vintage Honda is not a wall stopping you but a hill to be climbed…And its great to stand on top of that hill with your engine ticking! Thanks guys!
Brenden is right on the mark about the fear and loathing folk like me feel when being forced to mess with a bike’s wiring, especially the accursed headlight bucket junctions. I’m recommissioning a ‘71 CB500 four and had no choice but to start disconnecting stuff when I realised the left and right hand controls would need to be replaced.
I spent as much time with pen and paper documenting what connected to what and labelling connections as I did with a spanner / screwdriver. Which wasn’t time wasted since the colour coding on one of the new controls isn’t as per the model’s wiring diagram.
Watching this video multiple times gives me just enough confidence to start connecting everything when the forks come back form the hard-chromers and I get a new top forkbridge,
So another huge Thank You to Brenden and the other Common Motor folk for helping me out, just as you did with your tail light circuit and back brake etc videos.
Excellent video, as they all are, very informative and helpful. Thank you.
I worked at a Honda dealer in the 70s. After school I would assemble bikes out of the crates. The bars an turn signals were not connected, so I had to wire them up. DANG, they were real easy to do when the wires were nice and soft.
Good video.
Good video! I love the vintage Bikes, the simplistic design and ease of diagnostic repairs! I've totally rewired a couple old XJ650's, such a pleasure.
I added ground wires to my directionals, I thought factory was a little weak. I love my new LED headlight too. THANKS to all at CM!
I am currently restoring a CB250 k4, and this video has helped me so much and taken all the fear out of connecting the wires back together again.
Great work 👏👏
This was great, I was looking cross eyed at the angel hair pasta of wires on my 1982 Sabre
Glad this video exists🦇✨️ I already had to go through the trouble of teaching myself where all the wires go with a diagram, but this visual aid is sure to be incredibly helpful for people 🌱
This may have been the most helpful video Ive ever seen on youtube. Thank you so much!
Thanks Guys- Making working on my bike so much easier!
Dang man! You are great for doing all this for us.
Finally a quality video of the cb wiring! The lords blessing
this is the most valuable video on youtube
I’m restoring my 1973 XL175 and this video demystified the mess in the bucket. Thank you!
although initially this gave me extreme anxiety watching you blindly unplug everything, you cleared up sooo much confusion for me. cant wait to do this on my XL175 thanks a ton for the video
Great tutorial...thanks so much
I just rewired a CB350 with a harness it didn't have one .
I got it running today thanks for your videos
I am really glad that I found your channel. I am probably about to buy a '75 CB550F. I will undoubtedly be ordering some parts and tools from you once I have a better idea of what the bike needs. All of your videos are extremely helpful!
Thank you for this very nice video,I salute you Brendan,one of the smartest motorcycle blogger,you are really helping lots of bikers that dont know much about bikes like me lol"take care.....
Hi there can you please make video on 1975 Honda CB750k front Headlight Bucket Wiring Harness connectivity. Thank you 😊
Very helpful and informative as usual. The new special effects (audio and visual) were especially nice! 😂
A valuable screenshot at 11:35
Very instructive and helpful . Good job . I`m currently reviving a GL 400 79 model a lot applies .
Great stuff y’all! I wish there was a video on how to swap the wiring for LED buckets and lights. Especially with the diode… I’m still unable to get all the lights to work right
My first time coming across this video and im a new owner of an 83 honda shadow vt500c and besides some of the obvious differences my bucket has the same color combos and some different i think this video can help me figure out two random wires not connected still more trial and error till i get a full print of the wiring set up color ways
Wow great on explaining...have a 79 Honda 175 ...still got a lot to do there..got it running 2 years ago
Hey Brendan, Thanks for the video. Far less confusing now! I have a vintage '79 Suzuki GS500 and I recently changed to a digital speedo. One little issue I'm having is with my Neutral light, after the ign. is switched off the Neut. light stays on. When Ign is off and shifted out of Neut then Neut light cuts out.
Before I cut the blue Neut light gauge and the 6 gear wires out of the old speedo(LED unit) an orange (12v pos) wire linked them all. Also a black/white wire, probably ground, was connected to the LED unit. I connected all 7 wires straight to their assigned wires blocked both orange and black/white. All gears and Neut lights show on the new unit display.
Tomorrow I'll go out and disassemble the nest like you showed here and test the grounds and pos's and see where that blue Neut wire is actually going.
If you Brendan or anybody else has a suggestion on why the N stays lit please comment I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks!!
Looking forward to taking mine apart to fix my horn issue today, hopefully, on my 1979 Honda Express.
Great instruction. You the monster! 👏
You make it look so easy.❤
Great video just acquired a 72 cb 175 with a mess of wiring. Motor was toast I found a great condition cm200 motor I just put in slight differences between motor mounts but it’s the burn orange and white cb had to buy it lol thanks
I have a 1980 gl1100 that had a fairing and I’m just going to have the head light and leaving the fairing off but it seems like there’s too many wires to fit in the bucket, I might do like you did and take all the wires off and start from scratch, thanks for the video
This is very helpful.
I've recently got a 1975 CB400F, and my main concerne is that it has the "old" on/off light switch on the right handle, and the hi/lo beam on the left handle.
Any helpful tips? Thank you
Thx Brenden great tutorial and had put me at ease. I have a 73 CB200. What is the purpose of the Stata mod and can I apply it to my bike? 👍
Thank you from the UK
Your. Ideology are great thx
Huge help for my cb750k thx
Great set of videos on vintage bikes. If you are able... need some help on a C90 cub. 86 vintage, 12v and CDI system. There's a white wire with a black line that starts from the 3 pin regulator and heads to the headlight high/low beam part. Any idea what the purpose of this wire? I've upgraded to a 4 pin newer reg/rec unit and kept this wire disconnected. My headlights don't work although AC supply reach the yellow wire in the light switch(bottom half, for P and Headlight). This white the black line has been an absolute enigma to me. Can't seem to figure out it's purpose and how the light circuit work.
Thanks for this video CMC! Super helpful. I was wondering if y’all had any luck with an LED headlight alternative for the SL/CL 175 and the SL350? These models have the smaller 5 1/4” headlights and LED would be much better for safety reasons. Thanks!
definitely working on a solution! That one is at the top of our priority list.
Does turn signal switch wire from turn signal switch need to run independently from indicator box and correlating turn signal wires (front and back) run directly to indicator box? Thanks for your time
Excellent. Thank you. Great knowledge.
Very good, clean video for newbies like me! Thank you for your work! Did you ever consider work with smaller Honda Twins like CB125T or are they not popular in the US?
We've messed with a few but we don't fully support them yet. We will get there one of these days.
This was extremely helpful🎉
Should the white/yellow mod be done if using a new reg/rectifier single unit?
Are we using left and right lookiing from infront of headlight . Or from sitting on bike ,????????
I have a 1973 Honda CB 200 I bought a right bar hand switch for the headlights, dimmer and old stuff, but mine mine was a 9 water set app and then when I got so many 6 water set up. How do I get it to work for my bike?
Very nice video. As in my project, all of that birds nest still looks like heXX! And with myT120, I would like a much bigger headlite bucket to at least STUFF the wiring into….
What about the models that have the headlight controls on the left control box.
Awesome vid! Thanks
Well done thank you.
Thanks mate
Big help 😀👍
I require a rectifier and regulator that's joined together as one for my 1971 Honda CB 175 to upgrade it where can I get one and how much are they thanks Phil
I thankyou so much for doing that video . I have tried to follow wiring diagrams ,but my brain wont work that way . Having it shown i can follow your lead . Its not that im lazy to follow diagram my brain just does not compute .
Im sure i can sort out my headlight bucket , and get back on track . Once again thankyou .
How about the CL72-77 ?
Just went through mine (successfully!) yesterday. CL100-- its all in the bucket. Do you have a resource for good quality bullet terminals? I wound up going to my local scooter shop after finding nothing but pretty low quality replacement options, none of which actually "fit" "correctly"
We actually sell the great made-in-Japan hero brand bullet connectors on the website. Awesome connectors, just make sure you have a good pair of bullet connector crimps to install them. Thats the key.
Nice job :)
I wish I didnt disconnect my wires . Still no headway after 4 days .
I got a 6 wire right hand bar switch
I'm trying to sort out a k5 . And it's my 3rd day a bit at a time
Now I only have 1 white wire that is headlight .a big black triple plug ,if it was for indicators would it b same on other side. I have a feeling when I get to turn key on . I'm going to have a multiple component meltdown .
Did that once. Disconnected everything without marking it "I'll just remember it"..
Right. Took a month in my spare time to put it all back and working. Never again.
All these wires in the headlight bucket seems to be weird. But it's very clever actually, because it's always warm and dry there.
I have green/yellow stripe with a black coming from coils pigtail .that is the only green/yellow i have.
I dont know why the wiring wont match up
I should have taken more notice when unplugging , but I was hoping it would be straight forward. This bike has been a jinx . In 2 years I've done many 20 k . I'm a verry impulsive guy . I know a cliff it can fly off.
Well now I'm fkd. 20 wires in the loom . 31 wires to find a partner for.
I have to thank the parts supplier for supplying wrong hand controls. Now I guess il have to buy another set
When your in NZ 2SETS IS DAMM EXPENSIVE.
It's all fairly self explanatory, until you get an aftermarket switch that's not 100 percent correct as far as the colors go. In that case, you break out the multimeter.
The infamous nest.
Too bad this isn't for an '81 CB...
Bought my Honda XL75 for $100. The wires in the headlight bucket nearly caught on fire, so i disconnected them all, so the wires cant talk to each other, and kill the engine. Blinkers and such are gone anyway. Who the F**k came up with the idea of so many wires anyway? I dont need that crap.