- Joined
- Jan 27, 2013
- Messages
- 9,855
- Reaction score
- 34
- Location
- Brisbane Australia
- My Bike Models
- 1981 GL1100 “Rats Nest”
1998 GL1500c Val
1987 CBR1000f “The Pig”
1991 CBR1000f Red
The Rats Nest has been having a couple of hiccups lately and I just assumed that it was carby related as I haven't done anything to them since Alex80 sold them to me back in 2013 to replace the rat pee frozen original ones. On the savage bumps on the dreaded driveway it felt like I was over fuelling and I needed to pull in the clutch and rev the engine to clear it. Today while taking some slow tight corners ( pegs scraping) I noticed similar breakdown and loss of power. After happening a couple of times I noticed that my voltmeter, temp gauge and USB charger was showing around 9-10 volts ( there is some voltage drop in the Vetter fairing cig plug).
I assumed that I had a charging fault and luckily I had just received my new lithium 18000ma jumpstart charger pack in the mail from China so I wasn't too worried. I removed the tail light fuse that also runs my 2 18w running lights and figured that I would jumpstart the bike and run on battery power until I made it home. As I took off to the next job with a reduced electrical load I noticed the Voltmeter was reading up around 13.5v so I wasn't too worried. Finished that job and didn't bother to use the jump start pack as it all seemed fine now, when I was finally riding home I noticed voltage was varying again and the bike was unevenly running at times. I did experiment with the ignition switch in case my voltage drop was caused by a faulty switch causing the voltage reduction. When I shut down the Rats Nest and turned the ignition back on there was no circuit/dash lights, I realised that I was now a member of the failed main fuse club :yahoo:
I actually believe that the fuse had actually failed due to a stress fracture in the fuse rather than melting from a short. This fracture caused an intermittent fault as it failed and reconnected as I was riding and the engine/bike was now running on charge circuit alone and at low revs loaded up as per over fuelling/ weak spark. As the Rats Nest has fairly low mileage ( 38k miles) it still had its spare fuse in the cover which was fairly corroded/ oxidised and when I went to use it half one tang fell off. I managed to support it between the 2 screws and once again the Rats Nest was up and running. I will probably replace it with an auto resettable circuit breaker when I can figure out where to mount 2 of them ( one for an accessory feed) but I think tomorrow I will just replace it with fusible link wire.
I assumed that I had a charging fault and luckily I had just received my new lithium 18000ma jumpstart charger pack in the mail from China so I wasn't too worried. I removed the tail light fuse that also runs my 2 18w running lights and figured that I would jumpstart the bike and run on battery power until I made it home. As I took off to the next job with a reduced electrical load I noticed the Voltmeter was reading up around 13.5v so I wasn't too worried. Finished that job and didn't bother to use the jump start pack as it all seemed fine now, when I was finally riding home I noticed voltage was varying again and the bike was unevenly running at times. I did experiment with the ignition switch in case my voltage drop was caused by a faulty switch causing the voltage reduction. When I shut down the Rats Nest and turned the ignition back on there was no circuit/dash lights, I realised that I was now a member of the failed main fuse club :yahoo:
I actually believe that the fuse had actually failed due to a stress fracture in the fuse rather than melting from a short. This fracture caused an intermittent fault as it failed and reconnected as I was riding and the engine/bike was now running on charge circuit alone and at low revs loaded up as per over fuelling/ weak spark. As the Rats Nest has fairly low mileage ( 38k miles) it still had its spare fuse in the cover which was fairly corroded/ oxidised and when I went to use it half one tang fell off. I managed to support it between the 2 screws and once again the Rats Nest was up and running. I will probably replace it with an auto resettable circuit breaker when I can figure out where to mount 2 of them ( one for an accessory feed) but I think tomorrow I will just replace it with fusible link wire.