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Hi

Does anyone have some good advice on rewiring my 500? Is it best to crimp and solder, or is crimping alone adequate? I also need to get some crimpers, terminals & wiring. Anyone able to help with good sources for these please?

Many thanks

Gary
PS Please note that I'm also posting this on the 3-1/2 section, in order to reach all parties that maybe able to assist.

Vehicle wiring products I find good.

Crimp then solder.

The most reliable joint you can make is a properly crimped one. Soldered joints are banned in many critical applications.

Many thanks for your comprehensive assistance all! I'll get busy with your thoughts in mind.

Cheers

Gary

Auto Electrical Supplies, Granville House, 11 Cross St, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire WR15 8EF
Phone: 01584 819552. Phone for a free catalogue

You can get the original plugs and sockets (Momo), and crimp tools, from Kojaycat.co.uk

Soldered joints can be a bit brittle around the point where the flexible copper wire strands meet the solder and are therefore unsuitable for applications where flexing or vibration may occur. A good quality crimp tool, properly used can make joints which are physically strong and have very low contact resistance. That said, cheap crimp tools which just squash the crimp can be very poor and are best avoided.

As someone said above, Vehicle Wiring Products have a good range of wire, crimps, spades and so on, and also stock tools.

Hi Gary,
I should add that PLEASE don't use the horrible crimp connectors that come with red, blue and yellow 'insulation' on them! With the possible exception of 'scotch bloc' crimp on connectors, nothing looks more horrible/bodged on a bike than these.
Avoid soldered joints - they are less reliable than properly crimped joints.

As other posters have said, VWP and Auto Electrical do proper connectors that are neat and tidy. While you are at it, you need to decide whether to copy the original loom piece for piece with all of its excess of wire and connectors, or go for a sensibly designed new loom that eliminates lots of the excess. The former method is the easiest, the second (I believe anyway) the better way.
As an example, the 1978 31/2 originally had over 4 metres of wire and I believe 9 sets of switches/connections between battery and headlight. On mine, I reduced this to the same 3 switches (ignition, lights on/off, dip/main), 1.5m cable and just 4 connections.
I hopefully have added a pic of what it looks like under the rhs side panel now (I was alarmed to realise that this wiring is now over 20 years old!)
All depends on how comfortable you feel with doing wiring.

Regards,
George.

Couldn't agree more, it is more like an electrical substation that a amateur electrician would cobble up and I too reduced the wiring down to half a dozen wires with a single 12v lead to the front of the bike rather than to and froing, Morini must have had shares in the firm who made all the wires and fittings.

Hi George & Harry

Many thanks for your extra valuable input. I'm a real electrophobe, but feel you're right about the terrible excess electrics on these bikes. I need to learn up & sharpen up in order to set this right. It'll easily be my biggest challenge in getting the bike sorted. However, I've managed just everything else (though painfully slowly), so far!

Best regards,

Gary

Morini were actually quite clever. The loom is modular to make it easier (faster and cheaper) to build the bike. The headlamp for example can be pre-assembled with its own short section of loom and you just bolt it on and plug it in. On many bikes you'd have to feed the loom through as you tried to fit it.

Gary D wrote:Hi George & Harry

Many thanks for your extra valuable input. I'm a real electrophobe, but feel you're right about the terrible excess electrics on these bikes. I need to learn up & sharpen up in order to set this right. It'll easily be my biggest challenge in getting the bike sorted. However, I've managed just everything else (though painfully slowly), so far!

Best regards,

Gary

Gary-you know where I am if you need a hand with this. I usually do my own rewiring as I often want it slightly different to the standard, cos I'm a bit odd like that. It usually works out fine and I can manage to keep the smoke and sparks inside the wires, which is the important thing, and as Paul said above that wiring was done that way for convenience-just not ours.