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EXPLANATION OF CHASSIS AND ENGINE GROUNDING


blowit

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Let me start this by saying that I'm a huge
advocate for proper grounds. I've fixed many an odd problem on cars, boats and
RV's because of bad grounds. My Dad was a GM service rep ,and in 1968 found out
why the new body style GTO's with automatic floor shifts were all seizing the
shifter cables. No ground strap to the body,and ground was trying to run through
the shift cable.  I too was wondering about the Banshee electrical system and
proper grounding since I just installed my motor in a freshly painted frame. I
did "bare metal" all the mounting points of all mounts. But after buyiing and
using 4 new damper shims, I couldn't see how the motor would possibly touch the
frame- metal to metal. Not that the Yamaha engineers purposely meant to isolate
the two, but they certainly didn't do the opposite either. Anyway, tonight I
removed my chain,clutch cable,lower exhaust springs, exhaust brackets, and
disconnected my wiring, Ohm meter proved it- totally isolated. I can't believe
these don't come with a ground strap from the factory.
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  • 11 months later...

Awesome write up.  I tore my bike down last night to paint the frame.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only component in the stock wiring that actually grounds to the frame is the voltage regulator?  Everything else had two or more wires going to it which indicates to me that a hot and a common/ground is being supplied to the component through the wiring harness.  I am going to put a ground strap between my motor and frame, but it would seem that running a ground wire from the engine to the voltage regulator would be just as good?  I've built hot rods and other cars/trucks from the ground up and definitely know the headaches a ground issue will cause that can be fixed with a simple ground strap so I too would highly recommend one, but on a Banshee, unless I'm not understanding it right, the only thing grounded to the frame is the voltage regulator.  

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ummm..

 

the banshee motor is ruber mounted  not sure if anyone brought that up..

 

the only OEM ground from the stator is from the main ground going to it from chassis ground ( wire on regulator mount) . that same ground feeds everything else. 

 

i have found multiple breaks in that ground or the connection is all rusted up from contamination on the backside of the stator.. the coil, ignition etc is all grounded through the cassis.  

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ummm..

 

the banshee motor is ruber mounted  not sure if anyone brought that up..

 

the only OEM ground from the stator is from the main ground going to it from chassis ground ( wire on regulator mount) . that same ground feeds everything else. 

 

i have found multiple breaks in that ground or the connection is all rusted up from contamination on the backside of the stator.. the coil, ignition etc is all grounded through the cassis.  

 

Isn't the coil (ignition is the same thing) grounded through the black wire?  The coil has a black and an orange wire.  The black is the ground.  It would seem to me that the only place anything grounds to the chassis is in the rear on the voltage regulator.  

 

Looking at this diagram, I see three grounds.  The voltage regulator and each spark plug.  That being said, it would seem that you could just run a ground wire to the voltage regulator and not worry about rather your frame is grounded or not.

 

banshwdc.jpg

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wow  i just noticed  that diagram dosent show any actual ground from the main harness to the regulator at all. i know there is one there  and also the reg grounds through its casing.    the coils casing ( mounting bolts) actually ground to the chassis. if there is any kinda bleed off the casing ground kinda takes care of it.   according to yamaha as long as the threads on the bolts are kinda sorta into metal its good..  also the plugs ground into the motor and that would rely on the stator's ground to run...  like a lot of things on these bikes  the elecrical is retarded simple  you can relly think way to much into it and forget the golden rule K>I>S>S>   Keep It Simple Stupid....

 

i can test the integrity and pretty much any electrical failure right off the back of the bike with the 2 cdi plugs.. 

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If you  take a coil off the bike and check continuity from the mounting bar, it is isolated from the ground terminal. (both terminals for that matter). I've read on a XS650 forum (another Yamaha twin) that the reason to mount the coil to bare metal on the frame is actually only for heat dissipation. Any way, for whatever reason, I know my bike is over-kill on grounds.

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in one of my advanced electrical diag classes we had talked about if a coil has the metal areas exposed in its mounting screws ( like the banhsee coil and a lot of gm tbi stuff, hei etc)  tis a good idear to make sure that the mounts are a good ground to them.  also HEI ignitions also have a ground strap to the case of the coil under the cap.  this makes a path for any electrical "noise" ( if i rember) somewhere to go. its simple  i jsut make sure the frame is clean under where ever the coil is mounted.  if in the stock location or somewhere custom.  no biggeee  if anyone dosent understand why its done read about hei ignition coils.  i recently had to replace the coil in my ole hotrod from some retard not installing the ground strap from a from a mount bolt to the center ground.  it cooked the wiring inside the cap,  even the new coil had a nice instruction paper on how important this casing ground strap was...  just my suggestion.  just like the suggestion to add a 4 ga ground wire from your case to the frame.

 

 after thinking about this more and more  maybe the spark plugs could benefit from the added ground..  but in my experience  more problems from crappyily installed stators, crappy powdercoating grounds, shitty wiring and disregard for proper grounding in general, motor painting etc are the problems most of us deal with.  not the results from not having an added ground strap/.. 

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