Friday, June 6, 2014

Farkle day

I noticed that the Powerlet outlet on the left side wasn't working after I picked the bike up from the first clutch repair. Ugh. I tried to debug it before Connie and I went on a ride, but ran out of time. 

During that ride, Connie's heated gear connector started acting flakey, and I narrowed it down to that particular connection (not a connection further toward the bike).

So, with two failed electrical connections, it was time to make a few repairs. I suspected that the Powerlet connection failure was corrosion-related. Both the female and male connections looked bad. I could read voltage (but lower than expected) on the female connector, but the male connector looked like it failed on the ground side (likely caused by corrosion).

I ordered the parts directly from Powerlet, and they showed up yesterday afternoon. Today was a 9/80 Friday, so I had time and beautiful weather to take the bike apart for the fix. The Powerlet connector replacement was a bear. The brass nut had corroded to the base metal connector body, so I had to cut the nut off. The new connector went on with a good coating of lithium grease for the nut and dielectric grease for the electrical connections. It works great.

I then fixed Connie's heated gear wire, and installed a new wire to power the tank bag. Both of those work great, as well. Everything looked fine when I powered up the bike, so I think I'm all set for the next big ride.

No comments: