I often get asked about Motogadget – it’s superb kit, and I have a few of their bits on my project bike. Very nice quality indeed.

Alas, a lot of the electronic bits are for negative earth only, when they are wired via the mo.unit basic or mo.unit blue, so there is a limited application for these parts on our classic Norton Commandos, which most of us have wired positive earth as it was from the factory.

mo.lock

Interestingly, the mo.lock can be used on it’s own, and we have a way to wire it for positive earth!

The manufacturer description of this device is as follows:

In simple terms, it is an electronic alternative to the ignition key switch.

You hold the key fob close to the switchplate, and it switches a relay that powers up the electronics on your bike.

Wiring

In the factory instruction manual (which can be found here) they give clear directions on how to wire the unit in.

In addition, they supply a very good connection diagram.

All of the parts in the kit are plastic, and there is no reliance upon any of the mountings to electrically earth to negative (ground) as it is designed.

Which is great news for us, as it means we can use this on a positive earth system.

The mo.lock module will always switch the positive, there is nothing we can do about that. But we can use it to switch the positive feed to the relay coil (which is shown as earth on the original Motogadget diagram) and connect the other side of the coil back to the negative side of the battery.

I have taken the original Motogadget diagram, and edited it making it suitable for our positive earth bikes:

The kit is supplied with a relay (40 amp switching capacity) and spade terminals.

They detail an optional backup capacitor – this isn’t strictly necessary if you already have the original blue can 2MC capacitor on the bike, you have a decent quality charging system, or you are confident that your bike is not electrically noisy.

I would suggest that PODtronic owners, Tri-Spark ignition owners, or those with electric starters fitted should consider either retaining the 2MC capacitor or taking Motogadget’s advice and fitting their backup capacitor.

Here is their mo.lock kit (note no backup capacitor included in the kit):

Here is a 1972 onwards Norton Commando wiring diagram with the mo.lock fitted.

Because the original four position Master Switch (key switch) had functionality to turn the lights on and off, I have had to make a minor adjustment in this area.

I have removed the two position toggle switch from the headlight bucket, and instead fitted a three position toggle switch.

This is the same part number and wiring used on the pre-1971 Norton Commando, so is not out of place at all.

The three positions are:

1. OFF
2. Pilot Light, Instrument Lights and Tail Light
3. Headlight, Instruments Lights and Tail Light.

You toggle between the dipped beam and main beam using the handlebar switch as before.

The Lucas Part Number for the switch is LU35710

The Norton Part Number is 99.0563

1972 onwards with mo.switch fitted PNG 3066×1841