1978 XLCH Wiring PART 4 of ????

While tracing the wires from the bird's nest under the seat, I found this.

This is the wire that goes from the starter relay to the start solenoid. That's not a nick in the wire, it's a nice melted section where it was laying against the engine case.

The addition of the starter circuitry appears to have been done early on in this bikes life. Judging by the quality of workmanship, in particular the wiring and how it's routed, it looks like it was done by a legitimate HD technician or at the very least someone who had done it before. The only exception to this is that someone had wired in a new style relay in place of the original type at a later date. 

The starter installation certainly wasn't the work of the PO that did the ape hangers or rotary switch. This leads me to believe that the main starter circuitry is sound and that this melting was a result of the other substandard wiring. Either way, I'll still need to double check the rest of the starter wiring, just to make sure nothing else was affected.

At this point, if you are familiar with motorcycle electrical systems, you'll know that there are really only two portions of the wiring remaining: the rear lighting and the recharging circuitry.

For the rear lighting, I already knew that would need to be redone. One of the turn signals was completely missing and the other didn't work.  In addition, there was no license plate lamp on the side mounted plate bracket.  Plus, I hate the aftermarket rear fender that was on the bike so I knew that would get swapped along with the brake light.

So that just leaves the recharging circuitry. As long as I'm freshening the other wiring, might as well do it too.

<SIGH> How did changing handlebars turn into rewiring the entire bike?