SOHC.co.uk Forums > CB500/550

The 500 lack of multiple fuses is there a cure ?

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McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
After viewing the video plus looking at the cost I'm not going down the Motogadget road so it will be either check my existing loom thoroughly or if I replace it go for Deltariders option of fitting the
500 K2 version if I can find a new one.

As I am some time away from fitting a loom I will await the outcome of the thread on a members Dead Short cause.

Nurse Julie:
We have 7 bikes on the road all with a single fuse and never had a problem with the fuse. I have seen loads of fuse boxes off 550 F1, F2, K3's melted but never a single fuse melted. Even Millie has a 500 loom on a K3 frame and F2 engine and i have had her on the road for 5 years / 6,450 miles with no problem. The only problem i have had is with DSS looms and now buy from electrexwold which have the correct colour coded wires.

Oddjob:
Sorry Julie but your looking through rose tinted glasses there, the amount of fuses I've seen burnt out on 500s is immense, most had been replaced by those fuse holders where you twist the top a little to release the fuse, a longer fuse than standard I may add. Also a lot of them showed melting on the fuse holders, some had even melted the fuse holder itself. Plus this was when the bikes were still fairly new, not 40 years later with all the corrosion and wire hardening that has happened in that time. Conversely I've not seen a 3 fuse system in the same state, I've seen the back of the fuse box in poor state, I've seen fuse holders in poor state but I've never seen one melted, loads of corrosion, loads of blue gunge everywhere.

Due to me being the 500/550 enthusiast at Queenies I tended to get every single one that came through our doors, subsequently I've seen hundreds of examples and I can't think of a single 500 that didn't show some sign of melting. Even if that was just the red wire starting to buckle as they did when they were starting to go. If I'd kept some of my sub looms from over the years I could show pics of them.

There are 3 examples of the electrical panel for the CB500 on Ebay right now, not a single one of them has the complete fuse setup, all are missing the plastic fuse holder, all show signs of the wires going to the fuse holders starting to melt or have even been replaced. I'd imagine even breakers don't list parts that clearly show it's almost started a fire.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255571789499?hash=item3b814406bb:g:YRQAAOSw~~RfziuJ&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwMUQF1m2JWVO8N7Y4pferHxSI0XNzcTn8lfE0WagcS90ulE%2BRQuG9Kk%2FVfhucLx16Ez%2FXyJaPZmuhsL6K%2FXEzkFdr6PvyLysEmVrYw4T4oWYoG0xxbOe%2FclZbYx%2FZr9cqbSNTMQ6tRYDVJ5FOR7mNJFCzVE1h1T1bcrIcSimz0c1b15UYfrzzbhI%2Fw%2FBIcQvFyfzcfxdfbwrO40r48l5DmYoRBm%2F%2BmYleslnZcja7L41CcdK8VRUc9Z1tZvx5kgkFQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9Tp-oSCYg

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353647379550?hash=item525706c45e:g:ZTwAAOSwSBVhKler&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwBtCX62Wr%2F%2BiPA54vMN2jyiWaGwTgbNrcikkl%2B2Ftm%2FqN5ntTQBhfSvXOHwWn6mJwhIOeU%2BIo3gxsoGP7DFefCgDw3ClBtmnEvJmiOiZW6LdYd%2B5z140LNcnucQlmTA861WmklGTNKE6dbOTzaDrZq80hVm15O0D9sEuraBr0xo5PwrwEOreb2dxh%2FqqDRJSnBkEd51IWJwDgNRRGPpICOxqX2dh36NYOKt1BNdWJxF80Qj2HDzwStkx79bttOmm0Q%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9jp-oSCYg

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314157677804?hash=item492541bcec:g:BnYAAOSwzsVjLIVB&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwIFWyGcVGm2hhNT%2Fdv5G45pxsHps59xh3t7RcOPMFcJ8G0YCyB%2BPUHBrlPU37j1JthSAKN05vundIAEq294hYtK6uIYJ2drDlUrqTg6kQejfejqnaBx8jwvbetWjCUnmCr1XA9jytYaivWvu0k%2BSI6%2B%2BGQTQJqM2Hn0UOKb1IBVdl%2BFKK%2BetnC0CnsrZFPdxqhpGf%2FK%2FG9ps%2FXpVT8Ii4Iwzb8g0lnk8u4%2BHiM%2BdkItawaBbxVeZjqhMc2eXLxavdg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9zp-oSCYg

Perhaps Ted will post a pic of his fuse board and show what that looks like. I'm betting it will show signs of either melting or wire buckling that precedes the melting.

Nurse Julie:
I don't wear rose tinted glasses Ken, I wear clear varifocals 😂😂😂😂
All I know is that our bikes have the original plastic type single fuse holders and the original glass (shorter) fuses and we haven't had any problems with them at all. I would have thought that with riding our bikes very regularly and the mileage we do on them, we have a higher chance of something burning out, or getting hot and melting but that hasn't been the case. Maybe because we do ride all our bikes so often, they aren't sitting around long enough doing nowt for wiring / fuse box problems to occur 🤔🤔🤔

Oddjob:
Not exactly Julie. First off your mileages will be far less than anyone in the 70s for example. You have a few bikes to choose from for example, not just the one you'd most likely have back then. More bikes means less mileage on each. Plus back then we rode in all sorts of weather, we had to, it was our means of transport to and from work in most cases. We didn't pamper them, they were essentially work horses, bought for having fun on yes but mainly as a means of getting from A to B. Secondly, you look after your bikes, they've all been restored, that means they've all had excessive amounts of attention to parts that normally don't get any attention, so any faults that were developing have been fixed, most of these fuses burn out because of dirty connections which increase the resistance, when that reaches a critical point the wire starts to buckle or distort, it's a clear sign things are going to start melting soon, on a restoration all those parts would be spotted and changed, contacts are cleaned, spade connectors are removed, cleaned and fitted with dielectric grease to stop any further corrosion forming. I have 2 500s, both have obscene amounts of mileage on them, close to half a million miles between them, one was even raced for a few seasons, both no longer have single fuses, they were too prone to blowing, had IMO far too much power coming down a single wire, Honda recognised that and changed to a better multi fuse system, not for just the 500 but for all of them. It's a poor system, badly designed and poorly constructed but was built that way due to costs and the fact they were breaking new ground, when they recognised those faults they changed the design, we should learn from that.

I do remember Graham telling me that he'd bought quite a few of the fuse holders at one time so he had spares for when they needed replacing, clearly there was a demand for them. Which begs the question, why? they are essentially indestructible, just a plastic parts that hardly ever gets touched, why would you ever need to buy in loads of them?

The prosecution rests milord  ;D ;D ;D ;D

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