I recently took a bike trip with my best friend(who got me on a bike) and his fiance for her college graduation ceremony, 30 mile one way and 30 miles return trip. When I was about 5-10 minutes into the return leg of the trip, we got off the interstate, waited in minor traffic for 5 minutes on the exit to make a pit stop.
We got to a gas station and shut down. We screw around with eats and drinks for a few(10 mins.) and we start to head out of the parking lot and suddenly my bike DIES on the spot, NOTHING... no engine, lights... hell the engine just flat out died.
Remembering this happened to me the day before on a 257 mile day trip on it, and all I did to reset it was to open my seat and tray then made sure my lonely 15A fuse was seated. It wasn't blown or anything, wires were not warm either. She popped right on and ready for action and made it through the rest of the trip with no problems.
Back to today, I open the seat, and make sure the fuse is seated, and she came back on, no problems. Start to head out It does it again, and we exit the exit driveway of the store and I Fred Flintstone it to a open parking area, out of traffic. I once again make sure fuse is seated, and ONCE AGAIN its fine as far as wires are concerned. All times nothing is warm or hot. Well we get out of the lot and get in the turn lane to get on the interstate and she dies briefly and then comes back on.
For fear of it happening while I'm at full 70 MPH on an interstate, my buddy and I pull off... disgusted and take my bag off my seat and pop the tray. There to my surprise, the wire on one side and the insulation is smoking. My buddy goes to pull the fuse out, and when he pulls the two fuse connectors apart and away from the fuse, THE TOP OF THE FUSE CAME OFF AT THE GLASS . The glass and metal cap separated. At that point, I was SOL with no spare and we just direct-wired it together just to get us home and shut her down. She made it no problems.
The fuse was not blown and still in tact. We were stumped, but we figure that corrosion was the culprit. The reason we figured, is because when we check the fuse the previous day, the fuse and contacts were corroded moderately enough to prompt me to take a wire brush to the fuse(since I didn't have new ones on hand) and contacts.
After I cleaned them off everything was WAY brighter, gauges and pretty much everything electrical. I did do a headlight mod. Bought a Bosch headlamp glass that allows me to change bulbs, not sealed beam and an Sylvania XtraVision bulb, a few more watts then stock, but not MUCH.
I want to know what you guys think, and what your suggested remedy is. A bit more then replace wire and install a new in-line fuse? Thanks a bunch guys!
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