Monday, May 16, 2011

Birthday Ride

I had organised a ride with my mate Geoff and one of his mates. Geoff couldn't get his 98 R1 put back together in time for the ride so he took out the ZX-12. Geoffs mate turned up on a pristine condition Thunderace. Looked like it was in show room condition with only 17000kms. We set off down to the servo for fuel and check tyre pressures.
We headed off out through St Clair going south down Mamre Rd. I take a quick look at the speedo and what the heck, the speedo is blanked out and the tacho is stuck on 3000rpm and wont move. Mmm this doesn't look to good. Then about 500m later the bike starts to splutter and slow down as Geoff and his mate disappear into the distance.
I pull over and whip off the seat covers and check fuses which are all good. The others come back and we decide to swap out one of the batterys. With the battery from the thunderace my R1 fires into life again and the speedo and tacho are working. Maybe just a faulty battery. Here's the offending item.


Geoff returned back to his place and removed the battery from his R1 and brought it back. So about and hour or so later i was under way again. We went for a quick ride up to Warragamba dam and had a look at the dam wall and visitors centre.

After leaving Warragamba we stopped off at Wallacia hotel for a quick beer and then headed on home.
The bike would not start this morning, so off with the seats again to check whats happening. New battery in and 12.5V so battery all good. Started the bike up and run up to 5000rpm and checked battery voltage, its still only 12.5V. Thats not good. Start to look a bit harder, ah huh found the culprit. Its a dodgy voltage regulator and burnt wiring plug.

I had a quick look on some R1 forums and apparently this is a pretty common problem with R1's and R6's. I got a price on a new one $212.... Ok so maybe i could pick one up at a wreckers, yep the first wrecker i call has one for about $90, that's less than half price of a new one so i think i'll do that and rewire it myself. This is the first time in 11 years that i've had a problem with this bike, so it's been pretty reliable with 47500kms on the clock.