captain jack
Turbocharged
Yesterday five of us went on a ride out, about 250 miles & very enjoyable too. Riding across the Yorkshire moors the old girl started coughing & spluttering, backfiring & missing a beat or two, add to that the GiPro was showing incorrect gears. After a few minutes all seemed OK again so kept going OK until I called in to fill up with fuel at the Motorway services. After refueling at first attempt it just kept clicking like a relay going in & out very quickly, second attempt started fine & I rode it to parking space while we called in for coffee & a rest. When rested tried to start the bike & nothing at all, no sweep, no lights, not even a click. Decided to call rescue service (that's why I pay them) told about 45 mins to wait. In the meantime we start to investigate the problem, guy comes over saying he's got an R3 & hes had an occasion similar due to an Ariel mast kicking in the alarm (I forgot to mention that), moved bike across parking lot but no better, companion decide that battery was dead, I said NO its a new one only a couple of months ago, at this point we decided to check it out. Off came the seat & I was just putting it aside when I heard him say "found the problem" - (don't you just hate that). The earth connector had fallen apart, the leads were off & the nut located in the terminal had fallen out. we couldn't find another nut anywhere so we strapped the leads down with a couple of cable ties, it started just fine & I was just phoning to cancel the RAC when along comes the van looking for my blue motorbike. Well we had him with us now & he had 6mm nuts so we started cutting ties & starting all over again to do a proper job. The nuts wont fit in the terminal, lets look for a square one, "lets just file it says I", NO says they, wee'l sort it. OK then I thought, & went & filed the nut to fit while they were struggling with some other stuff. Now we have my newly filed nut located but the terminal but the original screw won't locate due to being too short with the extra 2 leads I have on it (the cause of the problem), so now we are looking for a longer screw, we found one & using another nut to lock all in place the bike was running fine & I had a trouble free journey home if only a little late. Having dreaded what could have been the problem, again it shows that its always worth checking the simple things first, even if fixing it can be a bit more tricky. Why oh why do they not make it easier to attach another connecting lead to the terminals, another 2mm on the length of the screw would have saved all this.
