Hooking up battery in 84 Voyger

[Wolfman]

I need some help. Trying to put a battery in my Voyager and not sure how the wires all hook up. I have five wires. One positive and one ground of course and three extras. When I hook two of them to the ground ands one to the positive everything but the starter works no matter what position the key is in. Other combos do not cause any gauges to work. Is there something that I am missing or doing wrong here?

[trikebldr]

Sounds like it has been modified quite a bit. You will have to trace out where those five extra wires go. Sounds like one of them back-feeds power to the whole bike! NOT GOOD!

Some guys just run the power wires straight to the battery when they add accessories, and never do label them or run them though the ignition switch.

[Wolfman]

I was afraid of that. How many wires should there be hooked to the battery? May try to get it back to stock to save problems in the future.

[trikebldr]

A new, stock Voyager ZN1300 has just one large cable to the positive and one large, and two smaller wires to the negative terminal. The positive cable goes to the input side of the starter relay where it branches out to all other services on smaller wires.

The ZG1300 (predecessor to the ZN1300) has one small wire going to each terminal besides the bigger main cables.

It's quite common for a bike like this to be modified to add accessories by going straight to the battery.

Do you have the two shop manuals for this bike? You can find a complete wiring diagram for it in chapter 10 of the supplement, on page 10-7 in particular.

[Wolfman]

I do not yet have those manuals. They are something I am wanting to get though. So I have one extra wire to figure out then. Thank you for your help.