Starter Relay Failure

This is more of a repair story than preventative maintenance.

So, I'd had a long day at the office and everyone else had left. I got all my gear on, and climbed on the bike. It didn't start; there was no noise at all. I tried the headlights - they worked fine, so I knew the battery was ok. Having eliminated one possible culprit, I removed the seat and checked the fuses; they were all fine. Second possibility eliminated.

Now what? I sat back on my haunches and stared, hoping for some inspiration. My eyes fell on the starter relay fuse. I hadn't checked that yet! The fuse was all right but I'd found the problem - the starter relay had somehow short-circuited and melted a bit of the red plastic casing, causing the wires to become loose. I pushed the wires firmly into the casing and tried the starter button. Success!

Of course it was raining heavily all the way home. The bike coughed and died twice, but then immediately sprang into life again. Anyway, I got home without further incident. Here's the problem:

Now unfortunately I needed the bike operational to get to work the following day - no way was I going to take the train!

The relay itself was working all right; it was just the insulating plastic surrounding the terminals of the fuse which had given up the ghost. With a bit of lateral thinking I removed the wires from the red plastic clip and soldered them onto spade connectors. Using a short length of automotive wire I installed an inline fuseholder to take the 30A fuse. Here's the bodge:

It worked absolutely fine until I was able to pick up a replacement relay a week later.

TIP: As we're on the subject of electrics, there will probably come a time when you need to do some soldering. Even something as simple as joining two wires together requires the dexterity of a contortionist. You need one hand to hold the soldering iron, the other hand to hold the solder, and the other hand to hold the wires you are attempting to solder.

Er.... something's wrong there. Like a pony, you're a couple of hands short.

I thus invented the automatic_soldering_vice_wire_clip_spare_pair_of_hands_device.
Simply take a small block of wood and drill two holes right the way through. Insert a piece of ordinary galvanised wire (about 30cm long) through the holes.
Now solder a small crocodile clip onto each end.

I also fixed a small magnet from an old computer hard disk to the bottom of the wooden block, so that the portable vice can be used at any angle.

Now simply clip one of the wires into one of the crocodile clips, do the same with the other clip, and just bend the galvanised wire gently until the ends align to your satisfaction. Now you can twist the ends together, and you have both hands free for the soldering operation. This also works well for soldering connectors.

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