74' DT 360.  I took her all apart and put her back together to get ready to ride on the road.  Part of the process was swapping out the handle bars, changing the grips, new throttle cable, etc.  Before I took it apart I had no issues.  Now I'm pretty sure I put it all back together again the same way I took it apart but now when I try to use the kill switch next to the throttle the damn thing shocks the piss out of me.

I thought maybe there was bare wire touching somewhere in the aluminum collar so I took it apart, pulled the insulation down, and made sure there wasn't any  bare wire left exposed but it still shocked me.  From what I am reading this should just be a ground so I'm at a loss as to why / how it is shocking me.  When I do flip it from run to off it doesn't kill the engine either.

This morning I went out to take her for a ride and the battery was dead.  It is a brand new battery and was fully charged last weekend when I rode it last.  Could I have somehow plugged the kill switch into the wrong wire where it is drawing power even when the bike is off?  

Anyone with any suggestions as to how to get it to stop shocking me please chime in.  Also if I can understand if it is draining my 6v battery or if that is just something that happens on these old bikes?

Thanks!

Did you install painted handlebars?  Sounds like the bars might not be grounded properly or the switch isn't grounded to the bars.

Battery going dead could be a bad rectifier. 

Thanks for the resposne!

They are painted bars.  What is the typical way that I would ground it?  Find bare metal under the aluminum collar and the same where the bars are connected to the tree?

Another thing I ran into today is the tail light isn't working now.  It was last weekend when the battery was fully charged.  Now if I turn the key none of the lights come on but when I start it the headlight comes on but the tail light doesn't.  Could that be that the battery just doesn't have enough juice right now to run both of them?

Yes, you need to make sure bars and switch both are grounded good by sanding off some paint.  Or run a ground wire to kill switch.

Be careful running with dead/bad battery.  Could blow headlight if you don't have regulator installed.  (76 was first year of factory regulator)

Taillight runs off battery.  So with dead battery it won't light.  But with engine running it should light if charging system is good and battery or fuse is not bad.  If not, again, first thing to check is rectifier.  

 

It was the grounding issue. Ran a wire from the collar to the tree and pesto no more shocks!  Thank you so much. As soon as I mentioned that to my dad he said oh yeah that makes perfect sense!

Glad you got it sorted (with MarkT's help!) and thanks for posting the update.