Blimey. I didn’t know that!
Earlier this year, I was messing around with the carbs (as one does with Amals). I has removed the seat and was just starting to remove the tank to get access to the cable adjusters when I smelt something, swiftly followed by smoke. Quite a lot of smoke actually. And then flames...
There was a direct short across the battery. I wondered why the circuit breaker had not tripped, but then decided quite quickly that this was not the time for investigation. The side panel was off, so I simply heaved on the battery, and it disconnected it's self. So far, so good, but unfortunatly the insulation on the affected cable had ignited, which in turn ignited the plastic cable sheath. As I mentioned, this burns rather well, and it travelled along the loom towards the tank & carbs.
There was no time to grab an extinguisher or anything else, so I tried playing the Big Bad Wolf and huffed and puffed as hard as I could. I had visions of the fuel seepage from the ticklers igniting, followed by by the fuel lines melting, followed by the glassfiber PR tank. Not a pleasent vision at all.
Fortunatly, it did not go that far. Must be all the practice from blowing out birthday candles I suppose - one of the advantages of advancing age is that you get more candles to train on
.
What had happened was that an earth wire had been pressed up against a sharp edge on the live terminal of the circuit breaker, and this had cut through the insulation. Since the short was between the battery & the breaker, it failed to trip of course.
I spent 30 min. doing a hasty fix with new earth wires and a spare fuse holder so that I could ride the bike home and tidy things up, which has worked fine so far. A rewire is on the list of Things To Do this winter though.