Wednesday, January 1, 2014

First Post of 2014

Decided to do a repair on the rig and I didn't go for a ride today even though the weather was wonderful. Remember the -48°F that we had last Friday? Today was +18°F, hows that for a change. +66°F warmer!

There was one repair that had to be done. Last week after getting to the top of the driveway, I turned on the headlight and the horn went off. This indicated to me that there were some wires shorting out and I had a good idea where the problem was. The harness from the handlebar mounted multifunction switch goes into the top of the headlight and I already had to repair a couple of the wires before. Since the sidecar was installed, the handlebars go from right to left far more often than they ever did before. The harness was barely long enough and it gets pulled pretty tight when the bars are turned to the right. You can see all of the broken insulation on the wires with some of the wires touching each other.

I cut the wires where the insulation was broken and I added about 3" of additional wire. After repairing all of the broken wires, I went ahead and cut the remaining two wires and added additional wire to them as well. Now there isn't any stretching when the bars are turned lock to lock. It was only a matter of time before this would have been a problem. No lights at this time of year wouldn't be too good. 

14 comments:

  1. Electrical gremlins can be the bane of one's life....glad you found these so easily. Preventive maintenance usually pays off. 66f temperature change, it's got Colorado's temperature differentials beat! Most I've seen it change in a short period of time is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit in one day.

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    1. Thirty year old wiring plus really cold temperatures on wiring that wasn't designed to move that much means recurring problems. Hopefully 3" additional length should help.

      I heard that Fairbanks has some of the largest temperature swings within NA.

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  2. What a swing in temperatures. I bet that +18 seemed downright balmy to you.

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    1. Yep, pretty nice temperature. Especially compared to last Fridays -47°F!

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  3. Wow that is some jump in temperature. (Richard, my first thought when I saw the thumbnail of the wires - art!)

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    1. The swing is pretty dramatic though far from the largest. While driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks once it was -30°F in Anchorage, +50°F in Healy and -55°F in Fairbanks. Healy to Fairbanks is about 100 miles...

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  4. This has nothing to do with wires, but if you are missing your regular weather, we have it down here. Please come get it and take it away.

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    1. But we like to share, especially our lovely Winter weather. Enjoy! ;-)

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  5. Richard:

    as I look at your splicing job I can't help but smile. How many times I have soldered connections, only to discover I forgot to insert the shrinkwrap

    I notice it's almost shorts and T-shirt weather, at least during the day. I can't imagine such a huge temperature difference

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast

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    1. I can only remember forgetting the shrink tubing maybe a couple of times. The soldering gun was giving me fits but once I took things apart, cleaned the contacts and the tip it worked like new.

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  6. New Years maintenance and updates are about to commence here also. Sometimes that is as fun as riding.

    Happy New Year to you and family.

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    1. I still have a long list of maintenance to do but none of it is critical. This repair had to be done as I didn't want to be stuck without lights.

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  7. Youare a weather pansy compared to Martha.

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    1. Yep, no question about that.

      This is the KW of the North.

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