I went to adjust my valves as part of the troubleshooting process in getting this bike running (see my new member introduction). I found this:



The red markings are done by me with a Sharpie pen, so I would be reminded which wire to attach to which terminal. However, I think they had been hooked up wrong before I started my dis-assembly.

Would anyone check their bike to see if the red wires are attached to the terminal with the green sleeve, or are the red wires attached to the terminals with the black sleeve?

In advance, Thank you!

Oddly I think it is correct. My Factory Service Manual is MIA so I can't verify if it can shed any light on this.

I've removed my coils many times. It's been so long I don't remember if I did or didn't keep track of how they are wired. However the pictures below from my bike match some other pictures I found on the web. Maybe the Green is there on the terminal to tell you which side is up?

Also I found this article about ignition coil polarity and switching the vehicle ground from positive to negative for a different vehicle. If you scroll to the bottom it gives 2 methods for testing coil polarity. I'm not 100% certain that this method would apply to the vulcan 500 but it makes sense to me that it would.

Right Side: Green/Red on top and Red on bottom.

Left Side: Red on top and Black/White on bottom

Right Side

Left Side

Cool site there Triangles. I may have to try the pencil test on Hidalgo for fun.

Let us know what you find out if you end up trying it. I want to try it but I my Honda PC800 is still in pieces (doing restoration work) and my car has been on jackstands since early August. I just got it driveable yesterday. I hope to take advantage of the warm weather this week to get her ready for winter. Oh yeah and my garage is a huge mess, you wouldn't be able to tell if a bomb had gone off in there or not! If only life wasn't interrupted so much by work