Left By The Roadside Yesterday

Out in the frost yesterday, stopped to fill up near wareham, switched on, hit the start button and...nothing, just a faint click from the start relay under the seat.
Battery appeard ok as lights were strong checked fuses and battery connections etc but all appeared to be OK.
The problem seemed to be with the starter solenoid which was not operating, but as it is under the tank there was not much l could do so called breakdown service.
The guy turned up and agreed that the solenoid was the problem. In the end he attached jump leads directly to the starter motor and she fired straight up.
I rode home and removed the solenoid, tested it on the bench and it operated perfectly!

The fault was corroded and dirty connections on the low current coil terminals of the solenoid..once cleaned all was well again.

There are a couple of observations here.
Firstly although the solenoid is under the tank moisture can still get to it and there are no rubber boots over the terminals, so water can run down the wires to do its dastardly work.
Secondly this is not really a roadside repair as the tank has to come off to remove the solenoid .
Triumph do put some silicon grease on the connectors but this is not really adequate so as my bike is used in all weathers l shall be keeping a close eye on this issue.

 

It's a 2016 model,with 15000 on.
I think the real issue here is suspect design, if you look closely there is a real water trap in these terminals, it would be better if the solenoid was mounted inverted. (Which l may yet do)

 

Yes,that's another option. In some ways things have gone backwards, on the old solenoids there used to be a rubber button on the bottom and this was used to manually operate the divice. I wish l had one yesterday!

 

Yes, l did think of that one, trouble is the tank gets in the way and you can't get the screwdriver across the terminals, this is another good reason to mount the solenoid upside down.