Hitchcocks Forum

Hi I have ordered a new ammeter from our hosts part number: 141630 its the simple black and white faced meter as my red and green Minda one looks like it has been fitted to the bike with a hammer and chisel and looks worse for wear. My old one has a hole for the bulb to push in like the speedo but the new one doesn't, does this mean the new one wont light up? What shall I do with the bulb now that it has nowhere to fit can I just remove it?

Also I ordered a new speedo cable the Indian made one 124266 are these nylon lined or should I lubricate it with some oil before fitting?

The bulb for the ammeter is in series with the speedo bulb one has a rubber Minda bulb holder and the other one is some manky thing with a bare wire connection. I will remove the worst bulb out of the circuit and join the wires and I think that should make my speedo a bit brighter as well.

Er... no. If your ammeter and speedo bulbs were actually wired in series something doesn't sound right, they should be wired in parallel both having their own earths. There could well be a feed from the LIVE side of one bulb to the live side of the other, which is OK, and it's possible for their earth wires to be linked.



ISTRC the old Lucas ammeters weren't lit, that's a more recent Indian innovation.



The lore with speedo cables was always to grease the whole of the inner cable EXCEPT for the last 6 inches, in order to stop grease working its way up to the top and into the speedometer, where it could generally clog things up.



A.

Cheers Adrian, something certainly wasnt right a good old bodge comes to mind, the ammeter bulb had a wire in for positive and a wire out for earth but the positive wire had another bulb pigtailed on which was used for the speedo. It was just using the speedo housing as an earth.







I cut that bulb out of the circuit and soldered the wires together and used the bulb that was going into the ammeter for the speedo as it had a proper rubber boot on it with the two wires coming out.

This is odd but my headlamp bulb seems brighter now as well since taking that bulb out, before it was a kind of dim orange and now it seems almost as bright a modern bulb, I might be imagining that but the bulbs are linked as when the asymmetric bulb was unplugged to remove the headlamp the smaller bulbs wouldn't come on until I put the headlamp back on.

I can't remember what year your Bullet is, but if it has AC headlights one of the warning lights in the speedo - the headlamp main beam warning light - is also fed via the AC feed and should not be in any way connected to the other DC electrics. I'm pretty sure that orange/amber covered wire is used for the AC return for the headlamp bulb and the main beam warning bulb. I mention this because there are traces of orange covered wire on the live side of that bulb holder in your picture, and I suspect some bodging by a previous owner...



A.

Hi I am pretty sure my lights are DC as they run off the battery without the engine running. The wiring for the bulbs was not right as that speedo would not have been a good earth.

Nylon lined cables should not be lubricated with oil. The cable will seize; I found this was not fiction on a clutch cable once, even thoughI only lubed the exposed end. It seized solid.

Hi Guys-----yes, I think it's a swelling-up of the Nylon which has reacted with the oil.......You can get tins of spray graphite lube on 't bay easy enough......This will evaporate and leave a coating of graphite as a lubricant....