Midnight repairs.... almost a bike fire

[Blue Falcon]

So..... I work nights during the week, keep the same schedule on the weekends for the most part. Get a call about an hour ago " Hey man, I know I didn't wake you up..... I have a problem with my bike." Me - " bring it over, I'll open the garage ". 20 minutes later he comes walking up my driveway, sweating, looking like he is going to fall out, pushing his bike... he pushed it about a mile. His battery cable shorted to the frame somehow, he would not let me take pics of the bike ( another vintage suzuki ). But here are the pics of the wires.... before and after. When I dug into it, it looked like when he had his battery replaced a few weeks back, they pulled hard on the positive after inserting the battery to put the negative on and it tweaked the cable close enough to the frame that when he got on bike after a while... "snap, crackle and pop" nice red glow. Good news, no apparent damage other than a burnt spot on a plate you will never see. Temp fix for now. Don't let this happen to you, there is a reason the rubber boots are on the wires. ( I just looked it up....since he had to push it on the back roads... it was 1.4 miles.... bahahahaha )

View attachment 50040

 

[chuck hahn]

Another good tip is to make sure the posts on any perspective replacement battery are at the right end of the bike....and on the electrical panel side as well. This prevents having to stretch the hot wire out. Ground wire isnt big deal as it wont cause a fire. Under a perfect storm neither wire should be tightly stretched.

 

[GS1150Pilot]

I ran into that conundrum when I bought a new AGM battery for the 1150. The posts were the reverse of the old battery. Had to make a new positive lead.

 

[bonanzadave]

he would not let me take pics of the bike

??? Why not ? Is it stolen ?

 

[850 Combat]

I had a 1975 Triumph Trident, which I had ridden a couple thousand miles. I set out on my first cross country trip with it in 1985. My dad and I rode together from Northern Maine to Louden NH to watch some local club motorcycle racing, then he went home and I continued. On US 20. Somewhere near Seneca Falls NY, a ground wire under the seat chafed through to the frame where it had been routed accross the hot battery lead. About 6" of it, from the terminal to the hot lead, got red hot and burned all of the insulation off while I was sitting at light.

Thoee little red terminal covers serve a purpose, but I could have routed that ground wire differently.

 

[Blue Falcon]

??? Why not ? Is it stolen ?

I call it "Suzukistein" that should say it all... it is a mixture of different bikes.. Suzuki frame and engine at its core... I think it has 5 different colors of paint on the gas tank if that tells you more... and none of them the original color.

 

[sam000lee]

A few years ago when I was diagnosing my charging system failure I shorted something and melted my entire harness. It as one of the first things I had to fix on my GS and happened in about 10 seconds. My first thought was great now I have a worthless pile of scrap metal and y second thought was to go look on ebay to find a replacement...
Learned a lot getting the replacement harness in and bringing my charging system back up to speed.

 

[Blue Falcon]

A few years ago when I was diagnosing my charging system failure I shorted something and melted my entire harness. It as one of the first things I had to fix on my GS and happened in about 10 seconds. My first thought was great now I have a worthless pile of scrap metal and y second thought was to go look on ebay to find a replacement...
Learned a lot getting the replacement harness in and bringing my charging system back up to speed.

out of high school, I installed custom high end car stereo systems. I can't tell you how many "home installs" I saw that surprised me that they didn't catch their car on fire. I don't think that people really understand the importance of good power feed and ground on a 12V system. Impedance is a killer, either slow or fast. I have seen a $10K stereo system fried due to a bad ground connection and others due to a flopping power cable or a power cable not properly insulated or protected. DC systems are extremely sensitive and highly volatile.