1968 CB77 Upgrade

[flyin_]

Thanks Rob. Is any other prep needed other than a solvent wipe over the mating surface?

In the meantime I've been refurbishing the handle bar switches and mounting my new short bars. I disassembled the switches, cleaned all the contact surfaces and redid a few bad solder joints. My hi/lo switch was all corroded, had a broken solder joint, and was missing a spring. Its good as new now with very low resistance measured through the switch.


P1060811 by flyin_, on Flickr


P1060809 by flyin_, on Flickr


P1060824 by flyin_, on Flickr


P1060826 by flyin_, on Flickr

Hopefully I'll get my new bronze bushing installed in the right side cover tonight...

[jleewebb]

You appear to be missing a vital insulator piece (your third pic down). I made one from an old credit card. Lots of fun putting those tiny pieces together, huh? Nice lookin' bike, btw.

[flyin_]

Yes that piece was not in my switch. I'm a bit confused...why was this included in the first place? The "u" shaped bridge is making contact between the red or blue and green ground. So if that insulator is not there, the worst case is that you have an extra ground against the switch housing at the 1/8" ball. Why did honda seat the spring against an exposed metal ball anyhow? Seems like all they would have needed to do was seat the spring within the plastic and then no insulation would be needed? Am I missing something here? My switch seemed to perform well testing with my multimeter.

[brewsky]

Green is not ground in your switch (or shouldn't be)....it is the hot wire with a choice of connection to high or low beam from the switch position.

Therefore, if you don't have the insulator installed, the hot wire will ground out thru the ball, spring, and switch case.

Did you test the switch with it attached to the bars and bike?

I had to make an insulator also from a scrap piece of plastic...it is a fun job!

[flyin_]

Thanks guys! You saved me some trouble shooting later. I was a bit confused looking at the wiring diagrams. I'll study up a little more. This switch was not working when I got the bike and the light wiring in the bucket was all cobbled together.

So should my green wire plug into a green or brown in the headlight bucket. The wiring diagram shows it plugging into a connector that is brown one way and green the other?


CB77 hi lo switch wiring by flyin_, on Flickr

[brewsky]

It may be that you have a switch from a CA77, which indeed does show a green hot wire instead of brown as shown in the CB77 diagram.

I would check the wiring diagram and follow it dis-regarding wire color, since you don't know for sure what has been changed from orig.

Your green dip switch wire should connect to the HL terminal on the lighting switch (should be brown) and also to the meter light (should be green)....according to the diagram.

I would check the wiring diagram sticky post by E3Steve in the electrical forum. I believe there were some mistakes shown in some of the versions for the CB.

[Snakeoil]

You might want to lightly run a flat file over the joints to knock off any high spots. Try to span a large area so file follows the surface of the joint. Go very lightly. Ususally the weight of the file or just finger pressure on top is enough.

regards,
Rob