Be prepared and don't bend your connectors

Here's a tip:
Don't bend your spade connectors if they started out life straight.

Saturday my friend and I took a couple hundred mile trip to Mt. Scott in Oklahoma. It's the highest point in OK, you can see for miles. It happens to be in the middle of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. There are free ranging Buffalo, Long horn Steer, and other wildlife. We happened to come across some Buffalo crossing the road in front of us. I'll post some pics later.

We had stopped for gas and I remarked how great it was that we can take our KZ's (he has an '82 550) on such long trips and not worry about them breaking down. I never should have said it, I jinxed myself. About a mile after filling up, my bike was running great when all of a sudden it died, as if a switch was flipped. As I'm coasting to a stop I felt it was electrical in nature. I pulled off the road and tried starting it. Everything electrical worked, but it just would not fire up. About 5 minutes go by and my friend realizes I'm not behind him and he backtracks.

We start looking around and I see what happened. On my WG coil mod I see a broken power wire for the coils on the relay. The relay is mounted down low behind the left cover, and I bent the connector to get some clearance. Vibration took it's toll and the spade connector broke right where I bent it.

Once I saw what it was it took 5 minutes to splice the coil wire into another power wire I had running off the relay to the igniter. It fired right up then.

Sunday I removed the splice and fixed it properly. Later on I may find a different spot to mount the relay, maybe under the gas tank.

Despite keeping a good supply of tools in my bag, I wasn't prepared to fix an electrical problem. I did not have my knife with me (unusual) and had to borrow my friends knife to cut the insulation. We had to use Duct tape to cover it up too. I will keep a pocketknife and electrical tape in my saddlebag for any future mishap. Maybe some spade connectors too. :whistle:

Good post Kent and some great advice/food for thought. Glad you had a great ride...sounds like nice country!

del

Just a tip for you coil modders out there. I have performed this on 3 of my bikes now (soon 4) and have always mounted the relay inside a piece of inner-tube from a bicycle.

However, this last time I did one thing different - instead of using the tab mount on the relay to mount it to the bike, this time, I mounted the tube to the frame (wit a bolt and wide washer) but left the relay floating in the tube. This should isolate it from vibes nicely. The tube is VERY tight around the relay, so it's not going anywhere....

Here's a pic of the one mounted to the frame, but not one of the free-floating one.



Post edited by: Biquetoast, at: 2006/09/25 14:18