When connectors get crusty
This Blackbird wasn’t ready to fly
This 2001 Honda 1100 Blackbird had given good service and was in fairly good nick when it arrived at Double O Motorcycles in Bedford, apart from the fact that it was in the back of a van. “The owner had all his dash lights go crazy, then the ‘click, click, click’ of doom from the starter button,” said mechanic Sean Taylor.
The battery was now as dead as a dodo, so the first step was to slot in a properly charged replacement and check the charging system. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t putting any current into the battery, so Sean dug deeper. “There’s a multiplug on the left-hand side near the rear subframe, that is slightly exposed. Sure enough, it was green and corroded. “Corrosion eats away at the connections, increasing the current resistance, which then leads to overheating at the multipin plug. That, in turn, overloads the reg-rec which converts and manages flow of AC current from the generator into DC for the battery. Once it drops out, the battery gets overcharged and dies. Sometimes you’ll hear a ‘hissing’ sound, which is vapour escaping from an overheating battery,” Sean explained. Rather than use horrible separate crimped connectors, Sean found a firm who supplies multipin plugs to make a neater, more robust repair. An original Honda reg rec assembly costs £310, so Sean fitted a Tourmax one for £120, bolted in a properly charged £40-£45 battery and some aftermarket stick coils and it all took only an hour’s labour.