Grounding to frame

[125fightingmachine]

Hi guys, am fixing up a bike - took off old indicators (single wire) and swapped out for new twin wire indicators. Have connected the positive wire up but the negative is needing a place to be ground to. For the rear two I have ground to the frame but as for the front pair, well there not going to reach the frame. What do I do? Can I ground the wires to the forks or do I have to extend the wires to the frame..? Any ideas greatly appreciated.

happy riding, Louis  

[pilninggas]

the answer is in your thread title. you need to earth to the frame, extending the cables if you have to. earthing through the forks is a bad idea, the forks are joined to the frame via the headstock bearing which will have intermittent resistivity.

[125fightingmachine]

Cheers man  

[Airhead]

I'd try just grounding them at the indicator clamps first, that's how many were designed in the first place and work just fine. If you do find problems you can get more elaborate with it later

[125fightingmachine]

These wee buggers are modern and are screw ins.. No clamps.. Here's an interesting question though - I'm going to extend the wires. Does anyone know whether or not I can just strip a pair of wires off an old set of indicators that are similar or does the wire gauge and type have to be exact/bought?

cheers for now, Louis  

[Airhead]

yeah any wire that looks remotely similar in size will be OK, you say they are screw in...then just put a ring terminal on the wire that the threaded part will pass through

[125fightingmachine]

Spot on mate, will try extending them today! Grounding to the forks just seems a little dodgy as pilninggas has said above..

[nayruf]

I may be wrong,I have not checked the wiring on my bike, but I thought that handlebar components are often grounded to the bars and the bars are grounded to the fork clamps which are connected to the head lamp ears and then the bolts mounting the ears to the head lamp are grounded to the wiring harness behind the head lamp, I have seen ground connections at the headlamp bolts, I am sure my DT has its indicators and kill switch grounded this way.

before going to the trouble of making up wiring I would check this out first, you could check continuity from the handle bars to the frame,

[jimmy]

I believe in this part of the world the word is earthed, or earthing. Grounding is scraping your pegs going round a bend, or worse feeling the keel of your boat run out of water below you......Unless of course we are all Merkins now

[Airhead]

15 minutes ago, jimmy said:

I believe in this part of the world the word is earthed, or earthing. Grounding is scraping your pegs going round a bend, or worse feeling the keel of your boat run out of water below you......Unless of course we are all Merkins now

yeah it's all a popular misnomer though eh Jimmy, Its neither grounded or earthed (same thing) in reality but it's easier to say than 'connected to chassis' which is all it really is

[jimmy]

True, as the round rubber isolators prevent it from actually touching 'the earth', but it does earth the circuit within it's own world i.e. the bike, ensuring connectivity. They are the same, it's just that it annoys the shit out of me with all these merkin words creeping in....Oh and Happy Holidays  I mean Merry Xmas one and all

[Airhead]

if you drove a metal stake into the ground, you'd have driven it into the earth...yeah, then if you ran a cable from your bike and connected to said stake...you'd have earthed it...you'd have also limited the distance you can ride too

 

Merry Xmas Jimmy