Oh shit!!!!!!!

[SpikeOne]

Well I nearly lost it last night.

Having had a flat battery from being too lazy to connect it to the charger over the winter already, it's been on charge for a week in the garage.
Lifted the seat to unplug it to go out last night and "WOOF!!, blue sparks and smoke poured out from under the seat. Couldn't see for smoke and tears.
After a bit of quick thinking, I grabbed the wire with my bare hands and yanked it out of the hole that it was passing through, and all I got was red hot bare copper and melted plastic. Could have sliced my hand off, but thankfully didn't.

With smoke still pouring out, I opened the "up and over", whacked on a light, grabbed by socket set, and entered the Guiness book of records for whipping the seat and seat pan out. When I got in there, thankfully, the only wires that had burned was the remote leads to the battery for the charger, which was now bare, but, again thankfully, not touching any earth points.

I very gingerly opened up the battery box, disconnected the battery and pulled out all, what was left of the offending melted lead. It was a mess, but once I'd cleaned up the various stains from off the guts of the bike, it was in remarkably good condition, and before I replaced the seat I checked everything out, and there wasn't a fuse or bulb blown anywhere and the bike started first time.

When I examined the cable, it looks like it's been running hot during charging and melted the insulation, which had then caused a short somewhere, (don't know where, it was dark in the garage when it all first kicked off), and it then crossed my mind that the wire was probably just not man enough to take the charge current. It just doesn't look thick enough once the insulation is removed. Now, it may have been a fault in the charger, but in hindsight, more likely from the cable itself - WHICH I GOT FOR A KNOCK DOWN PRICE OFF T'INTERNET!

This is certainly a warning to me. I've been lucky on this occasion, but it I could have lost the bike, the rest of the garage and it's contents, including the memsahib's brand new Yamaha, plus all tools, gardening equipment etc..

Something tells me that I'll be revisiting this before the winter come around again.....

[mightbesane]

Another reason why I ride whenever I can through the winter...

[frankiej1949]

Ditto

[Ginger Phil]

I very gingerly opened up the battery box,

That's how I do most things.

[Big Den]

like that

[Data]

phew!...Spike, glad everything on the bike is ok. Could have been worse!

[dilly]

What make is the charger?

[newscooter]

Did you not fit a fuse in the lead from the charger ? I'm sure that my Optimate came with one, it would have blown and prevented the melting ?!

[maxine500]

Close one that one!!

[Mr Angry]

Don't think I would have plunged my hand into that lot

Reminds me of a bike I had that caught fire in the headlamp

Fortunately not far from home so turned everything off and pushed it to the house. When dismantling the unit I found a complete spaghetti factory in there where someone had attempted to rewire the controls etc after fitting new bars. Most of the wires bypassed the fuse box.

Took me a week to rewire it all and fit a new fuse box that also had a fault.