Boxerworks.com

Opinions (or better yet, facts!) please! I have the starter motor out of my '84 R100RT out for rebuilding. While it's out and the back ends of the diode board mounts are accessible, I'm going to replace the original mounts with solid ones. I've also picked up EME's battery/starter cable set, and their replacement wire set for the diode board. I haven't noticed any problem with my original diode board's functioning (there are 62K miles on the bike, and I"m not really competent enough with a multimeter to test it myself)---but should I be replacing it, too, as a reasonable precautionary measure, given its age? Is a diode board a "wear component" that predictably needs replacement at "X" miles/"Y" years? Thanks in advance for your insights.

Konrad

If it's working OK, leave it alone. Electronics life is based on a mean time between failures for the components. When I used to run failure trending to determine the stocking of spares the highest failure items was always the connection points. Some items fail sooner some take longer to fail, problem is every type of component in a circuit has a different failure rate. If you are not experiencing any issues don't worry what will fail, make sure when you install your new harness all the connections are clean and secure. The best way to clean the push on connectors on the board is with an eraser, it removes the oxidation well without damaging the finish.

So, that diode board may last for another 200k miles, or may die next week. Having a new one on hand isn't a terrible idea, but I certainly wouldn't replace one that was working correctly.

You can be danged sure that you'll need a new diode board should you ever attempt to jump start your Airhead with the jumper cables attached incorrectly. Got the wardrobe.

Replacing electronic components is not necessarily the most reliable strategy as they tend to follow what is called the bath tub curve. This is supposed to illustrate that components can have a high failure rate when new which quickly settles down to a very low rate for a long spell before rising again at the end of their useful life.