Well it finally happened to me today. Commuting home in torrential rain, my America died only 3 kms from home. I knew it had to be ignition related by the behaviour of the bike before it finally died and reason was probably wet leads or electrical connections. Surprising I didn't panic but calmly rolled off onto the kerb of a very busy motorway in peak hour mania. Sat for a minute having a good think and weighing up my options. Gave my starter another jab and it didn't look too promising. Thought about all the wet ignition posts I've read on Triumph blogs over the last six months. Whipped out a business card from a very wet wallet and gave a local motorcycle recovery service a call to find they were about 45 minutes away. Gave the guy my details and tried to rug up for a very cold and wet wait. I thought I'd give my starter another jab a couple of minutes later and lo-and-behold she started up on one cylinder and with a bit of revving settled down nicely on both cylinders again. I then cancelled the recovery guy and hi-tailed it home to a warm fire to dry out my wet clothes.
What did I learn from all of this?
1/ If your wife says take the car today because it looks like it's going to be very wet - THEN TAKE THE CAR.
2/ Mobile phones certainly come in handy at times like this.
3/ Keep a motorcycle breakdown service card in your wallet or at least their phone number in your mobile phone.
4/ If you have the room, keep a small can of water repellant spray in your tool roll or saddle bags.
Ironically I went looking for some WD-40 spray before my ride home but couldn't find any. I'll give my HT caps a good wipe down & spray tonight and will then keep that can of WD-40 in my panniers. In the mean time I'm interested in finding out if other TBA or Speedie owners have found a more weather-proof Spark plug caps?
