So fun with Bike wiring or what. long story short I have this xs650 that I’ve been looking at and poking at once in awhile. Now that most of the fabrication is finished I figured I should sort out the wiring. To start with its a 72 so its hard to find info specifically for it so I have had to try and figure out what what all the wires are for and what he things attached to are. No easy feat considering some things have no name or serial numbers on them.
Last night while staring blindly at the wires again (everything electrical works except for the indicators) wondering “what is it I’m not seeing?”. Its not like I haven’t done this before..(I suicided and shaved the door handles on my wife's “power everything” truck....talk about wire!!!!) So this should be a breeze right...not!
Wanting to be safe I have replaced the turn signal lights with 9 diode superflux LEDs (super bright!). The problem is that the flasher relay seems to work but does not affect the lights....I had the tail light flashing though at one point so I can’t figure out why I can’t get the turn lights to blink. Turns out “the purveyor of said bike” assured me all the wiring/harness’s and various required electronic elements. What he didn’t tell me was this harness thing was from a different brand of bike and a 750, so none of the parts match...(although they may work they are not factory in anyway shape or form.
As it turns out there is a 'slight" (lol) issue on some older bikes in that they are not set up for LEDs as apparently there is not enough draw (from the LEDs) to pull the power to lite the lights...no.... I’m not sure how that works but that's the case it would appear...... what has any of this to do with working out a contra deal for art, well actually quite a bit. The deal in this case was a bike for a paint job....most of the paint job was done (except the actual painting part). Said purveyor of bike assured me that everything electrical worked...this deal ended up being a “making a point” kind of thing for me...(we both got what we wanted sorta so its all good-ish but) The next time I do a contra type deal I will remember; 1) inspect all "deal" elements thoroughly, 2) don’t help allow the client to purchase too much (it’ll cost you in long run), 3) art has real $$$ costs so there “always, always,always!” has to be some in the mix (often to cover the short comings of said deal elements as its often not what it seems), 4) don’t “ever, ever, ever”, let the client pick your materials (to help keep the costs down) as its just not the same (this is a new one) and never turns out as well as it could have.
I know all this but for some reason I have to remind my self.......
Happy Arting!
