Now that wasn’t funny. Not funny at all.
I was heading home the other day, maybe 15 odd miles to go, it’s wet on the road but not raining right now. The Bandit is running fine, I’ve just gained maybe half a mile on the minibus I’ve overtaken when just like that the engine dies, it doesn’t lock up or anything, it just stops making power suddenly and completely. My first thought is I’ve misjudged on when I’m due to refuel and I reach to switch over to reserve. This doesn’t give me the desired effect and the bandit continues to brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr down until I’m at a standstill on the side of the road and the minibus leaves just enough room as he passes me by.
Now it starts to rain.
I soon realise I still have some electrics, my lights work, including my head lights, so I still have battery, but my engine won’t turn over. I am getting nothing from the starter button. Over the next half hour based on what I can get from my basic auto wiring tool I decide it’s something on the neutral/kickstand switch side of things that is holding out the ignition and starter system. I did this to force the ignition and starter systems to run for me.
That’s actually the croc clip from the negative end of my auto wiring tool made to fit into 2 of the connections on the relay connection block. This connection block is on the right hand side of the bike behind the tail section plastic.
Root cause was that one of the wires to this connection block had had its insulation worn through and it was shorting to ground against the frame nearby. So it wasn’t actualy my bypass which fixed the issue but the fact that I moved the wires to do it that got me home.
