Switchgear Success.

As much as all this writing is fun it does leave a little to be desired in terms of physical results. Thankfully, my trip last week not only gave me something to write about, it also gave me something that needed fixing, namely my bike's r/h switchgear pod which started spinning on the bar everytime I used the throttle. The only reason that the throttle worked at all was because the metal throttle cable sheath elbows coming out of the bottom of the switch housing could be wedged against the bottom of the brake lever clamp.

This setup was safe enough for coming home from Leicester (I had no choice) but not really for anything else. Luckily since the housing had never been totally right, I had bought a CBR600 unit to replace it. Unluckily, the CBR wiring used a totally different harness and different coloured cables to my CB500. So began the process of checking, double checking and logging which coloured wire went to each individual switch contact.

The pre-graft. I also hate phone cameras

With the wire colours safely noted, I took the plunge and cut the harnesses off of the ends of each switchgear's wire bundle and began the tedious process of soldering the appropriate wires together. I may maintain that bike wiring as a whole is a piece of cake, but I still hate soldering, the stupid stuff never flows into the joints like it should for me. Still, it didn't take too long, about 40 minutes including the time needed to refill my portable soldering torch a couple of times. I made sure the joints were all pretty by covering them in heatshrink before taping the lot up. Many people look down on using insulting tape, but I have no problem in using it to make an outer sheath for a bundle of wires that would otherwise be hanging loose. I wouldn't use it to cover the join on every individual wire though, that would just be sloppy! It all turned out fine and works perfectly (of course) but it always amazes me that no matter how confident I am of a repair, I'm always nervous when I try out some repaired or modified electrics for the first time. 

Seeing as I was doing work that took the bike out of action anyway, I also used this opportunity to take the bars off and drill a new locating hole for the pin on the CBR switchgear. My bike has Renthal aftermarket bars as the originals were too low. Honda switchgear uses a locating pin to stop it from spinning on the bar. This is especially important for the right side when the throttle is applied (it was this pin that escaped from my switchgear on the trip). However, when I got the new bars they didn't have the hole drilled for the switchgear. Long story short, I was in a hurry to get the job done and drilled the hole in the wrong place, putting the switchgear at a weird angle. This time around I trial fitted, measured and marked like a proper human being and surprise, surprise, the switchgear now sits how it should have when I first fitted the bars over 14 months ago!

It feels good to do something practical and productive, even if they were very minor jobs.