Well... it an attempt to mitigate any serious expenditure before knowing all is well with the bike, job 1 was supposed to be a 'big clean', so I could see what I was dealing with, however as I'm not currently working due to redundancy, I decided on a whim to chuck it in for an MOT and maybe put some miles on it while the weather's ok enough and before I get another job... avoiding the weekend crowds etc...
Did the usual checks - lights, indicators, horn, tyres etc... and rode it down to my local MOT tester. Pre-booked, of course.
Turns out there was an electrical fault meaning the brake light was intermittently on/off, actually more on than off, regardless of whether the brake lever/pedal was depressed, and the rear brake was dragging (I did suspect that when I wheeled it out of the garage, with the bike not having been used for a while.... rightly or wrongly thought it might free off with a bit of use). Anyway, sod's law, being what it is, the lights/brakelight operated fine when I checked, but decided that the MOT test was the right time to make the issue known. Ho-hum.... better safe than sorry though.
Speaking to my brother in law, he seemed to recall that on the way back from the Farmyard Party in 2025 (the last time the bike was used) that my brake light was on sometimes when I wouldn't have been expected to be on the brakes... thought I might just have been resting my foot slightly on the rear brake lever. Turns out, no... there's an issue.
Suspected wiring to one of the brake light switches.
Cue MOT fail, obviously. Annoying thing was, I'd checked all this before I headed out for the test.
Anyway, long story short, the fault was traced to one of the brake light switches rather than the loom itself. Few days wait for the switch. Switch replaced, and success....
Starting point is a bike with 12m MOT!
Now I confess here... I didn't do the repair, I didn't have a multimeter to check switches/wiring etc, so I let the garage trace, and rectify. They kindly freed off the rear brake too, FOC. They're a good bunch of lads, they have 1250GS each and used to have a bike race team. I've been using them for MOTs for over 25 years so I'm comfortable that they're on the level with me over repairs.
They've also had a good look over, and given it the 'thumbs up' as to no obvious hidden nasties, and therefore it being worth spending a few quid on as a long term prospect...
So, onwards and upwards....
) but I really wanted to get something achieved, so I made a start...
) - H4 bulbs in them apparently, so capable of dipped and main by the looks of things.
Taking this seriously aren't you ..
