Regal Red - Other Things
- Starting Point
- Engine
- Tin, Frame and Wheels
- Other Things
- End Game
The Electrics
- The wiring harness was too far gone to repair much less reuse, so I refurbished a harness from a later model that I had to hand. Suzuki improved the connector joining the front and rear harness sec ions together on the later models. The early harnesses had a bad tendency of over heating and melting the connector under the fuel tank which is less than ideal. The later style uses an AMP connector. When taking these apart, note there are two tabs that need to be depressed on either side of the pins/sockets in order to remove them for cleaning.
- The horn can be repaired after drilling out the aluminium rivets, and they typically look as you see in the photo below when disassembled.
Assuming that the components are not rusted out, or that the coil is not burnt out, normally all I do is clean, repaint and re-chrome the parts as required. There is a set of contact points which can be seen in the photo to the left below which need to be cleaned and then gapped properly on reassembly by adjusting the small screw on the back of the horn enclosure. The horn works by pulling in the hammer till the points open. The anvil acts as a stop for the hammer. You can slightly adjust the tone by threading the anvil in or out from the rear of the horn, although the range of adjustment is very narrow. The most important point is to ensure that however you adjust things, the contacts are actually able to open and break the circuit as otherwise the coil will just burn out. When bench testing these, I use an ohm meter to check that I am starting with an open circuit before applying power, and then adjust the point gap till the horn starts to operate. On this horn, I used stainless steel screws to reattach the re-chromed cover, and while it isn't 'as per factory' the horn does work well.
- I noticed that one of the brushes on the generator was badly chipped and also short, so at the same time as I changed all the lead wires with new black sleeving and connector, I also changed the brush. Changing the brush is a fiddly job to do as the brush and spring are held in place just by the solder, but it turned out well. The stator and the coils all checked out OK and the slip rings were not scored, so I am unsure why the old brush was in the condition it was. I suppose I'll find out soon enough !
