After being a good boy and disposing of my yard waste, I decided I needed a good ride to clear my pandemic addled brain. I was about 15 km out of town when my bike suddenly died.
Right, sudden death usually equals an electrical problem, so I was not surprised to find the main fuse blown. Unfortunately, I was without tools, and without any spare fuses. There is a price to pay for complacency, and this beautiful sunny day suddenly presented me with an imminent push home. I began to wish I smoked, since the foil wrapped around the fuse trick seemed the likeliest method to rectify the situation.
What to do...
Then I spied a discarded fruit juice can. Aha! Continuity! I manfully stripped a length of aluminum roughly the length of a fuse and wrapped it around the glass. I reinserted it into the fuse box and troubleshot the issue by releasing a calibrated amount of smoke. The brown wire leading to the alternator made a molten mess of the insulation. Not the smartest thing to do, for sure, but it certainly did narrow down the possible problems. I disconnected the plug to the alternator and rode home with a total loss electrical system.
I have ohmed out the rotor and windings and found no fault. I did find a break in the insulation of the brown wire leading to the alternator, so I am assuming the wire grounded out to the engine or frame. The fact that the bike ran fine all the way home with the plug disconnected tells me the fault was with the line to the alternator. This is the bunch of wires that takes the torturous route down to the alternator, next to the spinning countershaft and which is bathed in oil and road grime.
Fixing the brown wire is a trivial task, but the OEM vinyl (?) wire cover is brittle and cracking, so I'd like to replace it with something else. Does anyone have a good solution for replacing the cover? I was thinking armoured cable, but I doubt it would be flexible, or small enough in diameter to fit in the confines of the countershaft area. Does anyone know of a suitable sheath material?
Right, sudden death usually equals an electrical problem, so I was not surprised to find the main fuse blown. Unfortunately, I was without tools, and without any spare fuses. There is a price to pay for complacency, and this beautiful sunny day suddenly presented me with an imminent push home. I began to wish I smoked, since the foil wrapped around the fuse trick seemed the likeliest method to rectify the situation.
What to do...
Then I spied a discarded fruit juice can. Aha! Continuity! I manfully stripped a length of aluminum roughly the length of a fuse and wrapped it around the glass. I reinserted it into the fuse box and troubleshot the issue by releasing a calibrated amount of smoke. The brown wire leading to the alternator made a molten mess of the insulation. Not the smartest thing to do, for sure, but it certainly did narrow down the possible problems. I disconnected the plug to the alternator and rode home with a total loss electrical system.
I have ohmed out the rotor and windings and found no fault. I did find a break in the insulation of the brown wire leading to the alternator, so I am assuming the wire grounded out to the engine or frame. The fact that the bike ran fine all the way home with the plug disconnected tells me the fault was with the line to the alternator. This is the bunch of wires that takes the torturous route down to the alternator, next to the spinning countershaft and which is bathed in oil and road grime.
Fixing the brown wire is a trivial task, but the OEM vinyl (?) wire cover is brittle and cracking, so I'd like to replace it with something else. Does anyone have a good solution for replacing the cover? I was thinking armoured cable, but I doubt it would be flexible, or small enough in diameter to fit in the confines of the countershaft area. Does anyone know of a suitable sheath material?
