The Buddy System
When your stator fails you can still ride it home
By: James R. Davis
Scuba divers know it as a life saving practice - the buddy system. Maybe not so dramatic, but those of us that ride Wings have all known a friend who's stator went out when away from home. In this case, a buddy system works just fine to get that bike into town.
When your stator dies and your engine is running, it will continue to run until the battery dies, and it will not, of course, recharge that battery. Then your bike dies and you pull to the side of the road. What to do?
You swap batteries with your buddy! Pull all unnecessary fuses (particularly the headlight fuse if there is daylight) then start your dying Wing. Jump start the bike with the 'dead' battery, then drive away until the new battery dies. The good stator in your friend's bike will charge, at least partially, that 'dead' battery sufficiently so that when it is time to do the swap again you can do it and get the bikes started again. You might have to do this a few times, of course. Naturally, if you are riding in a group of more than two, you use any of the full function bikes to originate the jump start from.
This will severely tax those batteries, possibly doing damage as a result. But at least in some cases you can get to town this way.
(Good biker etiquette then suggests that if those batteries develop trouble soon after you do this you might have to put a couple of them on your credit card.)
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(James R. Davis is a recognized expert witness in the fields of Motorcycle Safety/Dynamics.)
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