While cleaning up the battery box before popping in a new battery (the old one had lasted over 9 years and one month, btw!), I casually noticed that there was what looked to be a wire harness keeper that had somehow become entangled with one of the holes on the port side of said battery box. Since said wire harness keeper seemed to be connected to the bottom of the ignitor bracket, I pulled said ignitor off the bike to gain a better look at what was going on:
I somewhat disinterestedly disentangled said wire harness keeper from said battery box:
It seemed as if this thing had had a purpose in life at one time......I wondered how long it had been in the position I had discovered it in. A languid glance into the starboard side of the empty battery box revealed this witness mark:
“Hmmm,” said I, “looks like this has been going on for a while....”
My mind lazily recalled the various maintenance procedures I'd performed on this bike in the past. I had bought the bike (a 2001 model) used in OCT of 01. Although it had only 60 miles on it at the time, it had spent the previous 9 months sitting in a shed that had been cooked daily by the hot Houston summer sun (The owner, a woman who bought the bike new, rode it only once (on a very windy day) and had decided then and there that she did not like to operate her own motorcycle.). As a result, the carb was pretty gummed up and, after purchasing the bike (for a princely sum of $3000) I had had to remove said carb, clean it, and dip it, in order to get the bike to run well. Although that was the last time I'd had the carb off of this bike, I distinctly remembered having to remove the battery box in order to be able to do so.
(On a side note, I DO remember being extremely busy and preoccupied during that phase of my life (I was neck deep into training for my upcoming mission to the Hubble Space Telescope - my kids like to remind me that my wife had bought them a guinea pig during that time and installed its cage in clear view in our front room....I still, to this day, remember no such thing!). So, I can only presume that I was rushed during this job and probably forced the wire harness keeper into the wrong position when reinstalling said battery box.
Becoming a bit more engaged, I began wondering where this wire harness guide was supposed to go. Some research involving a factory schematic (item #13):
and a photo from the very excellent
Savage Companion Photo CD (which I purchased several years ago - something I've
never regretted) – see inside the red oval:
made it clear that said wiring harness guide had originally extended inboard, between the battery box's rear-facing surface and the airbox's forward-facing surface.
“Hmmm,” said I, “was that worth rectifying?”
Still only mildly interested, I tried to re-form the wiring harness guide back to its original orientation. I got it started pretty good, but was having trouble routing it into what I felt was the proper position with respect to the various wires and the wiring loom that were running through the tight confines between the battery box and the airbox.
Then, I noticed something that made my blood run cold. My senses became fully aroused at this point, all synapses firing. I detected the stench of danger in the air. What I was seeing was most definitely NOT was the design engineers had in mind:
The vertically running large black wire, (which is aft-most of the wires seen in the above photo) is the negative battery cable. You can see that the insulation shows signs of distress in the area adjacent to the wiring harness guide I tried to correct. Just ahead of said negative battery cable is a wire harness that contains several wires. There was a bit of insulation damage here, to.
Although not clearly shown in the above photo, closer scrutiny revealed that the forward-facing exterior surface of the airbox had, near its front-port corner, a long vertical tab that looked as if it were meant to contain these wires in a position a bit starboard of where they were currently situated.
Well well....do y'all think it is worth pulling the battery box to properly route the wiring harness keeper into the tight spot between the battery box and the airbox? Y'all know how lazy I am.....