May 2012 - Issue 323
The Basement
There’s a lot of excitement going on in The Basement as bikes are coming together and our Can-Am is at the stage where it can be used any time. This happy stage has arrived because Ferret’s Custom Electrickery has produced a wiring loom that means come hell or highwater – or in other words a fairly typical enduro – there’ll be a light at either end of the motorcycle... and it will be a reliable light too.
Ferret is one of those off-beat characters who inhabits the motorcycle world, which I suppose is all of us really as you’ve got to be off-beat to be involved with these things. Anyway, Ferret is renowned in the motorcycle world for solving electrical problems and when we broached the idea of an enduro harness for the Can-Am he went into overdrive and started ticking mental boxes and asking things like “d’you need an XYZ and/or an LMO and what about…” Whoa there son! A white light at the front and a red one at the rear, something near the middle that goes ‘parp’ when a button on the bars is pressed, oh and a kill switch for enduros, is what I’m after.
So, we wheeled the bike into our studio at work, pulled the door closed, occasionally chucked tea and biscuits in and left him to it. Sometime later, Ferret and the Can-Am emerged and with the exhaust well away from heat sensors, we gave it an exploratory kick and were rewarded with a running engine and lights at either end of the bike plus a loud ‘parp’ when the horn button was pressed.
This whole wiring lark is a strange one and the times I’ve managed to actually wire a bike up are a lot fewer than the times I’ve made a complete mess of it. Still, Ferret doesn’t seem to have any of these problems and cheerfully got on with the wiring and devised a batteryless system that is easy to dismantle and reattach, with the obvious stress points noted and relief built in to the look – that means anywhere that could abrade and short out was protected and anywhere that a tight spot might just pull the wires off, say the coil, was given more play in the loom. As you’ll be reading this after Stafford but before the Scottish, come and see the results of Ferret’s wiring at the Moidart Run starting at Kinlochleven on May 3.
Tim Britton
Editor
