Hello everyone, let me begin by saying I have read and incredible amount of info on this site and it is amazing how helpful everyone is! I have an 81 CT70 I bought about a month ago and am not enjoying with my son.

Now for my technical issue: I bought the off-road headlight (DRATV) for my 1981 CT70 and I do not know how to hook it up.

The bike has 1 white wire, 1 green and 2 blue wires.

The new light has 1 whie, 1 green a only 1 blue wire.

I hooked up white to white, green to green and the 1 new blue to the bikes 2 blues. This connection method caused the white wire to start melting.

Does anyone happen to have any instructions on the wire correct hook-up?

Thanks

I looked uo the schematic for a 81 , the closest thing I found was a 79 but I think they are really mostly the same untill the late yrs.

Its sounds like you hooked em up right. I bought the same thing for my k3 and it worked fine.

was the bike running when it started to melt the wire?

The 1979 schematic is not the one you want to use, there is a 1980 schematic. There are several differences, primarily in the number of ground locations but also some other minor differences.

DrATV states on his website you will need to modify the blue wire if you have a high beam, which in your case you do. You will need to crimp a double female receptacle onto the blue wire coming from the headlight. Then you have one blue wire running to the high beam indicator and the second running to the hi/lo dimmer switch on your left handlebar.

The white wire connects to the white wire coming from the left handlebar switch and the green wire connects to the four-receptacle green wire coming from the main wiring harness. If your white wire is melting, you probably have a short in the left handle bar switch.

I did see where DRATV said I would have to modify the wiring but there were no instructions to do it. I do have a high beam so I will get the double recepticle for the blue wire from the headlight and see if that works.

You mentioned the second blue wire from the headlight to the dimmer switch, is that dimmer switch wire on the bike side also blue?

I just went and looked at the wiring in the bucket. I appear to have the the green and white connected correctly.

The existing blue wires on the bike side harness is a double connector and I can see where one of them goes to the high beam indicator. The second blue goes into a wrapped harness so I cannot tell where it ends.

So, when I install the double connector on the blue wire on the headlight, does it connect to the double blue connector on the bike harness side? or is one of the recepticles empty?

Thanks for your help, I always struggle with wiring issues.

The "two" blues into "one" is designed to deliver current to the high-beam indicator when current is to high-beam filament is turned on. If the white wire (low-beam) is melting, the blue wires might not be your problem.

Like ckyle79 said, sounds like there is a short in the hi/low switch or somewhere else down the line. You need to use a voltmeter and check the current from green to white with low-beam on, then check green to blue with hi-beam on.

I had it apart agian this morning. I hooked up the green to green and white to white, the headlight worked fine and white wire did not get hot. Of course the high beam and high beam indicator light would not illuminate.

I will try to get a voltmeter on it tomorrow. Does anyone happen to know what the correct reading should be? I am leaning toward the the hi/low switch being bad.

There should not be a double connector coming from the bike side of the harness (main harness). It sounds like someone, somewhere along the line monkeyed with your wiring, as none of the Honda CT 70's used a blue wire coming from the main wiring harness into the headlight bucket.

To wire it up correctly per the schematic, you need a double female connector attached to the blue wire coming from the headlight (the headlight from DrATV only comes with a single female connector, hence the needed modification). Attaching to this is a blue wire with a male connector that runs to the high beam indicator lamp in the speedometer. A second blue wire with male connector runs to the hi/lo switch in the left handlebar.

Hope this helps. Wiring can be a real pain.