Electrical (Tech Blog)

By Dave Porter, Customer and Technical Support at The Bonneville Shop The headlamp shell is one of the most prominently displayed parts on a vintage British motorcycle, as it sits proudly between the forks and in front of the handlebar. All too often, a project motorcycle is acquired with a dented, rusted, or incorrectly fitted

By Dave Porter, Customer and Technical Support at The Bonneville Shop Converting Your 6-volt British Motorcycle to 12-volts can be a bit of work.“The conversion requires not just an upgrade of charging system components, but also auxiliary electrical components. This includes light bulbs, horn, fuses, and in some cases, switches, ignitions, and ignition coils.”  

By Mike Grage, Customer and Technical Support at The Bonneville Shop LED Troubleshooting – We didn’t have LEDs when I started professionally wrenching on motorcycles over 30 years ago, but I most certainly wish we did due to the low power requirements.  Done right LED lighting can make riding a battery less bike at night

…evolution of the Lucas console switchgear. First Generation Lucas Console Switchgear – 39595 169SA The first generation of Lucas console switchgear used the 169SA body and first appeared for the…

By Mike Grage, Customer and Technical Support at The Bonneville Shop 12 Volt Charging System – Quite often we get questions about electrical diagnostics, most common is the charging system and how to test rectifiers. Whether it is a solid state or the factory diode pack, they work the same.  The first bit of advice

We get a lot of calls from customers fed up chasing electrical gremlins and, upon questioning, we realize that they are troubleshooting an old, brittle and potentially hacked on original wiring harness. Deciding to replace the wiring harness is an easy choice in such situations and we stock a vast inventory of wiring harnesses to

The 446 LED headlamp bulb is a technological marvel, and considering its modest draw from the electrical system, it is a “must have” for almost all owners of vintage British or American motorcycles (who can forget Harley’s generator engines, they could really use this headlight). The chip is designed to allow either polarity grounding (+

From the factory, British motorbikes were fitted with a rectifier and either 1 or 2 Zener diodes. Because they consist of fragile electrical components that can dry up over time or fail from vibrations. You can replace the parts themselves but the quality of replacement rectifiers and Zener diodes leaves a lot to be desired, […]