Props to you to stopping and helping a fellow rider. If it was that hot and melted it was probably ready to go any second on him on him anyways.

That's one good thing about being a rider, normally atleast in my experience, if a rider is along side the road you'll normally find the majority of riders stopping by to see if they are ok.

He broke down just down the rode from two strip clubs that have crap load of Harley riders. There must have been at least 20 that passed us along the side without stopping. Maybe because there was a suzuki parked there? I was quite surprised that not one stopped to help.

Things that would cause that problem:

(A) Corrosion within the grounding wire itself -- as the strands get corroded, they don't want to carry power as well, so the remaining strands have to pick-up the slack. Those strands then start running hot (overloaded), and from there it's all down-hill.

(B) Open short in a circuit not protected by a fuse. Uncontrolled power-draw between the poles of the battery would allow it to draw far more juice than the wires are rated or designed for.

(C) [RARE -- well, at least on Japanese bike:] Rectifier pack starts shooting A/C into the charging system instead of filtering solely to DC. Usually when a rectifier pack starts doing that, it also is letting far more voltage through than it should, so it's a double-whammy. Depending on the design of the alternator/generator/stator, it could also be feeding three-phase A/C at the time.

(D) Negative terminal not bolted down, loose. As the bike goes over bumps it jostles the connector upwards, forming a gap between the battery clamp & the terminal -- and an arc forms to close the gap, one far more powerful than a sparkplug arc. The arcing eats lead terminals very quickly, so it wouldn't take long to melt it to crud (learned that one using a very large truck battery in my 2-liter rally car at one time -- the hood shorted the terminals when I closed the hood and it ate both the terminals and the hood away in a matter of about 5-10 seconds).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

bad ground?

he should have got a katana.but i am thinking a short also.

Way to go Steve!

I recently came across a couple of young guys on an old CBR. It looked as though they were having trouble getting her going. They were both crouched down looking at the side of her. We were in the middle of no-where, and that wouldn't be good.

I pulled over and asked if they needed a hand. When I flipped up my visor the familiar aroma of skunk filled my nose. You know the kind of skunk that grows on bushes. The kind you dry. Then roll and smoke or burn in a pipe.

Anyway they were good. Gave me the thumbs up and off I went.



Glad I could help!

I'm think he did some electical mods and poorly secue a positive wire. I've seen this happen to a buddy of mines crusier. His poorly secued postive wiring would hit a negative exposed source on the bike during bumps, turns, or hard braking causing the engine to stall and even affecting his lights.

You should have atleast asked for a hit since you were kind enough to pull over.

Where they lighting it off the engine block?!

the problem is an HD problem ( and I don't mean haevy duty)