Oh shit!!!!!!!

[SpikeOne]

No, you're right in hindsight it probably wasn't a good idea to use bare hands on that lot, but it was instinctive.
I think I knew what the trouble was in a millisecond, and my brain just took over with a damage limitation exercise, (which could have gone horribly wrong!).

My daughter reckons the machine's jinxed. That 5 problems I've had with it, but if you weight it up, three, maybe four, have been, almost certainly of my own making, and the other one, fairly simple, well handled, warranty issue so I don't hold it against the bike, the dealer, or Kymco.

Funnily enough though, since I stripped out the remote lead, the bike seems to be running smoother. Might be my imagination, but I wonder if I've always had a slight leak to earth, which would not have helped the battery flattening when it did, and could also have caused the blown bulb and brake switch last year.

Time will tell...

ED:
No, it's definitely running smoother. None of the single cylinder lumpiness about it that I thought was just natural. Less harmonic vibration in the number plate too, which always annoyed me. Much, much, smoother tickover, and strangely, much smoother pickup on the clutch. All around an even better bike than I thought it was in the first place. Don't know about top speed, but as it goes faster than the book says anyway, (even 2 up), probably no change there.