Triumphrat

Kev_England

Hi all,
I'm posting this to give anyone who's interested in my experience with getting my 68 Bonneville wired to Single Point Grounding.

First, why did I do this?
1. I didnt want to grind off all the grounding points on my bike for the ground wires (6 or so different points). I just had my frame powder coated!
2. From what i understand, positive grounding encourages corrosion of the grounding points--a major problem for electrics.
3. Simiplification. I know now exactly where my ground is. Its in one spot!

I ran new 14 guage red wire from all my components that either previously didnt have one (e.g. tach lights, horn) or were grounded to the frame. It was very messy at first and I wasnt sure if i was doing the right thing. But, once I'd cable tied it all up it looked fantastic. Youll see in my pics the red wires are not taped. I will probaby tape it all up once the bike has been running a few months and i know the electics are solid. Right now all the lights work and im getting power to the ignition system. So, i should be good to go once i get the engine in and hook up the alternator.

Would I use this approach again? Absolutely. If you have the time I definately recommended this approach.

I got all the info I needed from this excellant paper from GAMBA:
http://www.gabma.us/elec/proper_grounding.pdf


Cheers, Kev

P.S. heres a few pics but you can see my entire restoration pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/KevsPics...nneville_1968#

Ohio-Rider

That looks great Kevin. Thanks for sharing. I intend to go the same route with my 77 in a few weeks. I bought a new harness and I'm hoping it has a few extra wires I can use to do that single grounding. Yours sure looks nice and neat and orderly. -Steve

henryanthony

Kev,

I've been thinking about doing this. Thanks for the detailed post! I am a bit concerned about adding that much wire though. More opportunity for chafing and pinching.

Have you considered installing a fuse block to separate circuits? I like the concept of separating lighting from ignition so if a lighting circuit shorts, the engine will continue to run. I've been researching this a bit and have found little information.

Henry

Kev_England

Thanks guys.

Henry: yes, I was a bit concerned when I started addding the wires. But think of it this way: Triumph did this method later anyway, (Norton already was because of the rubber engine mounts). Also, it will look a lot less messy when I tape it up. Like I said, Ill do that when Im 100% sure everything is solid.

As for fusing the circuits. Im not too bothered about it really. My 68 electrics arent all the complicated (well, now that Ive stripped them down twice and reassembled!). Especially since Im going EI and Sparx alternator. Those 2 circuits will effectively be off the main harness anyway. So, the main harness is basically just all the lights. Now, if my Ignition and alternator were still on the main harness I probably would go with a 3-way fuse system.

Just another comment: if you go this way have some patience, it took me several goes on some of the wires to get just the right length. So, buy extra wire!!!

Cheers.

Shel

I have spg on both bikes. I don't like the idea of using the frame as a ground. Looking good Kev

henryanthony

Shel,

As pictured in Kev's post, is not the frame the ground? Or is everything just connected to the + battery terminal and the frame doesn't play into the grounding scheme?

Henry

Shel

Henry,
I'm not sure how Kev is doing it but I run a wire from the battery to the spg.

SlowPocono

The single point ground is connected directly to the battery. I can see that wire in the picture.

Kev_England

Yes, its recommended that you run all the wires to a grounding point on the frame close to the battery. The GAMBA paper says the post where the rectifier was situated is perfect. So, I got my dremel and filed all the powder coat off that lug holder and ran a stainless bolt/nut to hold all the ground wires onto it.

And yes, one ground wire then connects that ground point to the battery. It would be too unwieldly to connect 10 or so to the battery, but that would work just fine too.

It may look a bit messy but in real life its not as bad as it looks in the pics.

henryanthony

OK, great! I think I have a better understanding of this now.