My bike caught fire

The Mrs and I went to visit our son in tewksbury but 5 minutes into the journey home my regulater/rectifier caught fire.

I smelt something nasty and looked for the car behind me as i was at the lights but there wasn't one then the smoke came wafting up from under the seat, I shouted to the Mrs to get off quick and rode it into the industrial site adjacent to the lights to get it off the road and turned it off, then the smoke really got thick.


I told the Mrs to see if anyone in the indestrial estate had a fire extinguisher whilst I tried to put the flames out with my glove. By the time she got back with one I had put the flames out, so luckily I am only looking at about £70 for the RR.

Glad you're both OK and that the bike isn't too badly damaged. The same thing happened to my Harley, shortly before I sold it. I thought that the whole bike was going to go up, but the rectifier (which is on the front of the frame) just burned itself out once I turned off the ignition.

Hi big dog
pic. looks like a Virago, had the same happen to me but on a bike safe coarse, half way through he copper flashed his blue lights and said that there was smoke coming from the bike I looked at the right hand side of the bike but the smoke was coming from the left hand side (rectifier) took out some of the loom and cost me £90+ bikes are funny things when you don't need them to be!!!

[northwind]

Yup, Viragos/Stars are somewhat known for it... Mine didn't catch fire, just slowly melted itself. Then the replacement decided to leak. And when Carrick Yamaha (known thieves and incompetents) fixed that, it had an earthing problem. All I needed was some sort of air-related defect and I'd have completed the set

The machanic that I use also said that Virago's are know for it, funny thing is peeps on viragotech.com dont seem to agree, or atleast the few that did respond havent said anything about it
And yes it is a virago that i have but it aint the girly 535 its a 750, I have done a few mods on it and BigApe has had a go and he really enjoyed trying to keep up with me when we swapped bikes for about 5 miles. (I was on his SV).
God I wish I had an SV
Trying to get the Mrs to let me have one but......well you know what they are like.
No offence to women, but you know how they say one thing but mean another, like when you are going out on the town with them and they say
"Oh you are wearing that shirt out with me, are you?"

I am sure there is a code book to better understand them

*Dives for cover*

I picked up a perfect RR from ebay for £25.

Different cause. I had a fire on my loom caused by a corroded parking light wire. melted about 8 wires together. Stewart sorted it for £70.

Originally Posted by BigDog

God I wish I had an SV
Trying to get the Mrs to let me have one but......well you know what they are like.

Just get an SV and tell her afterwards.

Originally Posted by Kate

Just get an SV and tell her afterwards.

LOL. I am not at the point in our marrage yet where I would rather have the bike than her.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by BigDog

And yes it is a virago that i have but it aint the girly 535 its a 750

Has the rear downpipe rusted through yet?

Originally Posted by northwind

Has the rear downpipe rusted through yet?

To the point of destruction