So you might have read my last post and asked yourself: Where did he put the starter switch? Well, the truth is I had no plan or strategy for the switch, just some vague ideas that I never put into action. In the end it all worked out though.

I had replaced the original switch with a mini SPST momentary switch. The switch measured small enough to actually fit inside the bar but I had no real intentions of attempting to mount it inside so I kinda just stuffed it in the existing hole I had made last summer for running the wires. I figured I would worry about it later but it turned out that after I had installed the new throttle the switch kinda just worked the way it was (haphazardly stuffed at an angle in the bar hole). The hole is underneath the bar so you can’t see the switch from any angle, but I can still reach it with my thumb when I need it. It’s out of the way, works, and doesn’t look half bad. I’m keeping it that way until a better alternative comes up. As far as I’m concerned I’m done with the right side of the bars.

Relocating the kill switch was an easy decision. It was independent of the starter switch and didn’t interfere with any other electrical system. The starter switch is another story because the headlight is wired into it. It took me a few days to decide to separate the two systems mainly because I couldn’t find the proper switch small enough to fit inside the bars. Actually, I did find a switch but no one had it in stock, anyway I’m glad I went the other way and separated the headlight from the starter switch. It looks good, and the “Brit Style” switch lets me turn off the headlight when I desire (or forget to turn it on like my ride this afternoon).

Luckily these headlight brackets had cosmetic holes in them begging to be filled with mini switches. Clearly, down is the off position and up is the on position.

Though this is a temporary location, I am very happy with how clean it looks. I started by splitting the plastic wire harness housing behind the bucket before it entered the clubman bars. I pulled the black/white wire and one of the black wires out of the bars and out of the plastic housing. I then slid some heat shrink wrapping over the wires, cut them down to size, soldered them to a mini toggle switch and mounted in them in the nearest hole I could find, the headlight bracket.

Split harness.

View from top. Nice short wires, neatly heat shrink wrapped and mounted.

It doesn’t look bad, and it’s not terribly awkward. I have something in mind for the future, but for now it will do. Tomorrow morning I’m adding a switch for the headlight (on/off) and mounting it somewhere away from the bars, that will leave me with just the starter switch to deal with which will remain near the throttle.

This first post is more exploratory than practical. I wanted to get my bearings and take a peek inside to understand what I was dealing with in terms of wiring. Once again I was amazed at the complexity of the industrial engineering concerning the button and switch fabrication. Of course, we can make this entire system simpler and more pragmatic which is what I intend to do in the next weeks. First things first let’s take the thing apart.

The housing is too bulky and it certainly doesn’t fit in with my new master cylinder. I’m currently looking for a sleeker aluminum alternative.

It’s no surprise its pretty dirty in there.

Black electrical tape.. tisk, tisk, the previous owner must have been in here sometime ago.

Bottom enclosure with button removed.

Starter button, all taped up and nasty.

Here you can see some type of green stuff growing on the exposed wiring.

Bottom of the starter button. Metal plate is rusted and dirty.

Metal plate removed.

These pieces represent the entire starter button disassembled. I’m consistently surprised by how tiny these little components are. Seems a bit overkill for a switch. I can’t believe they didn’t have anything resembling today’s mini SPDT or DPST switches.

This shot is of the wiring connected to the three metal leads that the button slides against. Like many old Honda CB owners, I experienced the occasional starter button sticking problem. The frayed ends of the yellow/red wire explains the occasional main fuse blowing. If the black wire is grounded in any way the main is going to blow.

Here is the bottom of the wiring assembly. We can certainly do better than this right? The strategy is simple enough. This is a three wire setup, where the black wire is feeding power, the black/red wire is the power to the headlight, and the yellow/red wire heads to the starter. So, the starter button is actually doing two jobs at once, almost like a simple relay circuit. First, the button in it’s up or open position is closing the circuit between the black and black/red wires, feeding power to the headlight. Second, when the button is pressed in the mechanism slides the tiny copper leads to connect the black wire to the yellow/red. This process turns off the headlight, while the starter turns the engine. When you let go of the button it reconnects the black to the black/red. BRILLIANT! But old fashioned.

So we have two choices here:

1.) We can go the simple Brit style way and connect an on/off SPST button that closes the circuit between the black and yellow/red wires. This process eliminates the black/red wire (headlight), which means we have to rig another simple on/off SPST switch somewhere to turn on the headlight. This is kinda cool, because we can have control of the headlight bulb, turning it off and on when we please.

2.) Or we can replace this overcomplicated starter button mechanism with a mini SPDT switch that will do the same job. This presents two problems:

a. We need to find a mini switch that will fit inside the bars. This means finding a switch whose body along with soldered wires is shorter than 7/8inch.

b. If we choose not to mount inside the bars, we can find any size button and relocate it somewhere else (easy). What makes this problematic is being unable to push the button while turning the throttle while simultaneously holding in the clutch in.

These are issues I’ll be pondering in the next few weeks.

The kill switch, on the other hand, is a more manageable system.

This is a simple two-wire setup. Our original switch was three way, with an off-on-off routine. In reality this is just a single throw switch.

This tiny little clip is the first thing you have to remove to pop the red switch out.

Careful not to lose these itty bitty pieces.

Here are the two leads, black and black/white. The red switch has a metal tab that closes the circuit when it falls between the two round leads.

Check it out. Another small ball bearing. Those 70′s era engineers were clever but also kinda weird. The ball bearing was used to give the switch that tactile feel of “clicking” when you turned it.

Here you can see the worn grooves where the ball bearing had rolled over for the last 35 years. Once again, we can make this switch much more aesthetically pleasing as well as relocate it somewhere else on the bike. The wiring is a piece of cake, we just need a simple SPST switch and solder the two wires to each lug. It will be the placement of the switch that will be difficult, not the actual placement but the design. It has to look good, not out of place.

I’ll post more on my progress in the next few days. Remember.
Don’t be afraid to take things apart.
Have fun.

To this day I still can’t get the LED Turn signals to blink. I did get them to work last summer, but they quickly reverted to their non-blinky state soon after. I have no earthly clue as to why, but it doesn’t worry me. The first place I suspected that could be the root of the problem is the switch. I figured I’d poke around in there and try to simplify the already overcomplicated antiquated switching mechanism. Take a look, it’s weird.

I don’t think I ever really looked inside even when I was installing the clubmans.

Filthy. I suspect Honda used some kind of dialectic grease on the sliding mechanism and all sorts of dirt and grime collected in there for 35 years.

It really is a mechanical wonder but could have been engineered with a much more simplistic design. The first thing I knew needed to go was the Orang/White and Light Blue/White wires. They belonged to the running lights on the original turn signals. It’s these wires I suspected might be causing my no-blinky malfunction. Let’s clip them and toss them for good.

After I took the whole switch apart I cleaned the grease off of everything, including the weird sliding switch mechanism.

Filthy.

These little sliding things come off too.

Shot of the rails.

The spring switch part was also covered in grease and grime. One more interesting aspect of this piece is that there is a ball bearing that’s used to either: 1.) Ground the switch, or 2.) Help slide the switch from left to right. Be very careful and don’t drop it and lose it.

The bottom housing, once again stuffed with some kind of lubricant or grease.

I cleaned every bit of it.

Here you can see the ball bearing back in the housing. It sits in a little triangle groove which has a slit that runs left and right. The other set of wires that I found odd in the switch were the Brown/White wires. The CB550 manual defines these as the tach and speedo bulb wires. Meaning that the lights in the speedo and tach are for some reason running into the turn signal switch which means they are also unnecessary in here. The Brown/White wires are set up to be actively fed power either in the middle, left or right switch mode. Totally unnecessary, we can feed those bulbs power from within the headlight bucket. Let’s de-solder them and get them out of here.

There, as it should be. All we need are the left and right turn signal wires and the pulsing gray wire coming from the relay.

I also went ahead and trimmed some more length off the wires in the headlight bucket.

As a rule of thumb if I take off a fastener that’s rusted or stripped I never put it back on so these bolts are going in the trash.

My local hardware store didn’t have the stainless steel fasteners in the 25mm length I need to replace the originals so I had to get black. These black allen head bolts will eventually rust. I coated them with a little WD40 before installing them.

So, all done and still I’m not getting any blinky-blinky. The lights just come on and stay on as they did before. I have successfully narrowed down the problem. It’s not the switch. Now I’ll have to look carefully at the ground wires in my bucket.

Good day gentlemen. See you next weekend.