The other weekend we had an MT-01 meet at Devil's Bridge in the Dales. I headed up there with Nikk and Bally, we stopped for a bite half way then continued. 3 Minutes later I was at the side of the road with my pants and the bike soaked in 15 litres of petrol! I believe the only thing that saved me from being a ball of flames is we'd stopped for about 3/4 hour so the engine had cooled, without that I would literally have been toast. We managed to make a repair and still had a good day but my paintwork is completely trashed.
Before I wrote about this I wanted to understand why my fuel return hose failed, which I managed to do this weekend. It was a combination of me being too concerned with the esthetics and re-using old parts. Years ago I'd moved the fuel pressure regulator because I'd removed the cover, but I didn't want an ugly fuel pipe sticking out the side so I made a steel section with a short hose. I then re-used an old Jubilee clip I'd had hanging round in my tool box for years.
For the last MOT I replaced the short piece of hose, as it was leaking very slightly, with thicker fuel line but still stuck with the old clip. To make sure it didn't leak I REALLY tightened it.
Over-tightening the clip caused 2 tags on the inside of the clip to dig into the pipe, the thicker hose and vibration from the engine did the rest. It broke away completely, I was too busy trying to catch up so didn't notice till the engine stalled due to an empty tank!
It didn't really sink in until later how close I was to death through stupidity. I've just bought 10 new clips for £4.00!! This is doubly stupid as I'm an engineer working in an industry where I'm always banging on about safety.
Max
