I found a wiring supplier on this side of the pond. They sell the laquered cloth over rubber wire, but made with modern materials. They also sell the cloth autoloom that's found under the tank of an WM20.
The BSA wire is solid rubber with the markers on the ends, right?
On the main website, under "optical info" there's a section on wiring.
http://www.wdbsa.nl/wd-wiring.htm
The last paragraphs say:
"Today, no one makes rubber-covered/coated wiring cable. But there is a good substitute! There is a company in England called "Electrical Engineering Services" in Lancashire, who make a cotton braided 1930's/40s/50's period-looking wire.
They use modern plastic-covered copper-wire in various thicknesses, which they then cover with a tightly-woven matt-finish cotton woven covering. In use, this wire soon dulls-down to a very realistic finish it is also quite stiff, so it can be bent or contoured to shape/fit. It is modern, so works well, but looks old!"
The stuff that this Narragansett place in New Hampshire sells looks like cloth covered rubber.
I also have some thick black viton rubber coated wire I sourced locally that is about 16 gauge internal, but has an OD that is about 12 gauge. I'll wait until the cloth coated wire comes in and take some photos to compare.
I know a lot of folks here have used rubber sleeves, but has anyone considered heatshrink polyolefin? It lasts much longer than rubber, and you don't need anything more special than a heat gun or hair dryer to install it. I have found heat shrink in different colors, both locally and online. There's a company called Electriduct http://www.electriduct.com/ that sells many different colors. I plan to use heat shrink on my wires and will report the results.
My bike has some auto loom (fabric hose type flexible conduit) enclosing the harness under the main frame tube. Does anyone else have this on their bikes? I bought some autoloom from Narrangansett (what a mouthful of a name!) and will report on it.
While we're on the subject, I'm going to use a sealed 6 volt battery inside a hollowed out lucas battery. I'll add a modern fuse block. What sort of fuse sizing have others used? I'm assuming a 20A.
Also, what's the size of the stud thread on the magdyno grounding point? I had my magdyno rebuilt and will need to get a screw in there to ground the negative side of the wiring harness. I'm assuming, since its Lucas that it's a BA size fastener, right?
I'm getting down to the last bits of my project!
Thanks for all you folks' help. I hope to give back some in documentation.
There is or at least was a guy on ebay also selling very nice rubber wire, just about as the remains I found on a switch. I bought some of that and with the heat shrink tubbing also available from ebay things look really good. This guy sells 11 different colours and all are there as BSA used them.
By the way, my 43/44 WM20 and a couple I've seen in person have a black or yellow tubing material (autoloom) surrounding the wiring bundle under the top frame rail. Have you or others on this forum seen this?
