New Member By erinsdad (Read 3,112 times)

[erinsdad]

well, I've been here enough times, it was time I joined up!! I live in Minnesota, so we have a short riding season. I have a young adult daughter Erin, a small Mexican Chihuahua dog named Sofia, and a 2008 Tank Urban Classic 49cc scooter. I've included a picture of my daughter riding my scooter! I bought the scooter brand new. There was a guy who bought a couple of truckloads & was selling them dirt cheap from a disused car lot. How cheap you may ask? Under $500.!! Now, I find out maybe it wasn't such a good deal after all. The electrical wiring part. I got "under the hood" with some performance upgrades, and that's when I found the problems. I said to myself "Man, the last guy to have this scooter REALLY screwed things up royally!!" Then I realized that I'M the first & only guy to have it!! I've heard stories of Chinese workers being drunk all day or just not caring. So, I've been repairing wiring for 2 months, with just an electric shop class in high school 50 yrs. ago and 3 wiring diagrams that were not made for Tank scooters. I'm at the end now with just the brake light switches and a right side handlebar assembly left to go. Which brings me to a little but important piece of info. I need.
I finally found a Tank wiring diagram, but it's not for my model. The Tank diagram shows the brake lights being a 3 wire system. Green, Black, Green/yellow. Another diagram, & a modified Tank diagram from your archives. show that it's a two wire system, Black, Green/Yellow. During my Web research, I found about 1/3 of the bikes going for a 3 wire system, and all the rest are 2 wires. I've already wasted a pair of switches & don't want a repeat. If anyone can offer up any support for this dilemma, please let me know???
Thank you!! and I feel much better about reading your postings now that I'm a member!!

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[bhinch]

Welcome...I am sure we have the knowledge base to help you with your scoot.. Enjoy Your Ride...

[tvnacman]

Welcome , Erin has a very pretty scooter .

Well lets think outside the box for a moment how many wires are in the brake light assembly and work from there .

John

[erinsdad]

[replyingto=tvnacman]tvnacman[/replyingto]Hey John thanks for the reply. Well, the switches have 2 wires each. The Tank diagram shows the right side switch as having Green, Green/Yellow. The left side having Black, Green Yellow. I saw a few on the internet with this same configuration. Of course the Green/Yellow go into the tail light as one, and the other Green and Black go their own separate ways. Black being hot, and green being ground.

[tvnacman]

what about the brake light assembly ? Does the electric start work , with it work without holding the brake either side ?

Black should be switched power off the ignition switch to power the brake ckt through the brake switch . Is the green wires green, a different shade of green than the grounds (green) ? did that come out right ?

JOhn

[erinsdad]

The switches themselves are Green/Yellow & Black. The green looks like it normally does, not Light Green. I haven't had a working starter since about 2 months after I bought it. I now know that even though I don't have the kickstand switch, I do need to depress a brake handle in order to start it. All this time I didn't know that!! That's why the Green/Yellow and the Red/ Yellow (starter) wires go to the starter solenoid. I took it to a guy & he overrode that starter wire & hotwired it in such a way that it still needed a key to start. Hopefully, after I'm done in a couple days, this will be fixed as well.

[JR]

Welcome to the forum erinsdad and I'm going to move this post to the proper area and explain how this starting system works and the guy who hot wired it has added to your problem so we'll need to un do that set up also. (p

JR

[JR]

OK here is how the brake light/start system works. In the above diagram you can see exactly how this Tanks scooter is/was wired and all Tanks I've dealt with have the typical Chinese wiring set up.

Now the brake light and starter solenoid are tied together so you must have a brake handle (either one) pressed for the scooter to start, it's a safety thing. So here is how it works.

You have two brake light switches left and right. They are two wire:

Black = 12Vdc from key switch when the key is on
Green/yellow = 12Vdc output when the brake handle is pressed and the key is one.

In the above diagram you'll see a left and right brake handle switch with a black and green/yellow wire on both. Up front where all the wiring is to these switches you will have a black wire that goes into a 2 to 1 bullet connector. Both black wires on each switch ties into this black 12Vdc feed wire.

You will also have a single green/yellow wire that also will hook in to a 2 to 1 bullet connector and each green/yellow wire from the brake light switches will tie in to this also.

Now if you look at the diagram you'll see the green/yellow go all the way back to the brake light bulbs and also split and go to one side of the starter relay. With the key on and the brake handle pressed you send 12Vdc to the brake light bulbs and the starter relay but the scooter will not start until you hit the start button.

Now this is where the yellow/red wire comes in to play that you mentioned. In the diagram you see this yellow/red also going to the starter relay and back to the start button. On the start button you see a green wire also and it's going to your kill switch. This is the ground side of the starter relay.

In other words when you press the brake handle you supply 12Vdc to the starter relay while at the same time supply 12Vdc to the brake light bulbs.

When you press the start button you then supply the needed ground to make the relay kick in.

The kill switch has to be in the engine run position for this to work also, if it is in the engine off position then you have no ground wire to the start button and even with the brake handle pressed it will not start.

If this mechanic rewired the yellow/red and green/yellow on the relay then he has defeated then entire starting/safety system.

JR

[erinsdad]

[replyingto=admin]JR[/replyingto]Thanks!! This really helps a lot!! Now, a couple things that confuse me.
First, I think my initial & ongoing problem was that I didn't get the switched and unswitched situation. Now I do. Which is prob why I've burned out so many switches so far! Also, there is only one full bullet connector there,on the black/white wire from the key switch, there is also the two male bullets on the one brake switch. The other switch is part of a new right hand starter switch/brake assembly which has the Molex type connectors identical to the stock connectors. I've got plenty of these I can use. Free wires consist of 3 black, 2 green/yellow, 1 green/ground. Thanks again for you help!

[erinsdad]

[replyingto=erinsdad]erinsdad[/replyingto]Forgot to mention, the main brake switch wire, green/yellow, comes in and splits into 2 (just soldered together) and then the one goes back directly to the starter solenoid along with the red/yellow starter wire.