Wiring Colors for Motoplat

[LarryVolenec]

Adding lighting to a 1974 Penton 250 Hare Scrambler and there is a discrepancy between the wiring on the actual Motoplat and the wiring in the Enduro Wiring Diagram in the shop manual.

My Motoplat has yellow, red, green, blue, and black wires and the shop manual shows and additional wire which it white and does not list the use of the red wire.

According to wiring diagram in the shop manual
White - tail light
Yellow - headlight
Red - listed as a wire color but not shown on diagram
Green - stop light
Blue / Black - coil

Questions
Why don't I have a white on my motoplat and is that a problem?
What is the red wire for?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Larry Volenec
Daytona Beach, FL

[TGTech]

Larry,

When Motoplat created the ignition for the KTM engines, they changed the  lighting wire lengths and changed out the color of the tail light wire.

Originally, I was told that the change had to do with the specifications of the stop light wire going from 18 to 21 watts. But I just looked at the specs on my technical data sheets, and there is no difference shown on them. Both the 9600160, 9600162 and 9600166 are all showing 21 watts.

But the Sachs engine versions all had the red tail light wire and the KTM engine versions had the white tail light wire. The stators could be interchanged with no performance issues.

All that having been said, we (the Penton Team) didn't use anything but the yellow wire to power the lights. The problem was that the ignition was rated as a 6 volt system, but that was at 6K RPM. At 10K, there is about 9 volts, and you could smoke the 6v bulbs. So, we used 12v bulbs and powered the head and tail light with the yellow wire. We didn't use a voltage regulator because we wanted to keep things as simple as possible.

Dane

[LarryVolenec]

Dane,

Thank you very much for your time and sharing the information on the wiring. The wire color change makes sense. I appreciate your insite to the practical application of how the Penton Team handled the light wiring.

Thanks again.

Larry Volenec