Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Russia, Mongolia, Stans & Beyond

The plan from Islamabad was to head towards Lahore and onwards to India. Unfortunately the night before I was due to leave we were sitting around watching car videos on Youtube which then became food videos showcasing all the amazing meat on offer in the city of Peshawar about 200km to the west near the Afghan border

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So, Peshawar it is!

As I rode along the highway to Peshawar, I felt the bike hesitate and went to pull aside. Could it be the fuel filter/pump again which had caused hesitation in Russia

Then I also noticed that my hazards wouldn’t come on and upon coming to a stop the whole bike died and wouldn’t start back up. Ok, this seemed to be electrical

My first thought was to pull it apart and start testing as I suspected a charging issue, specifically the stator as I had already upgraded the reg/rec on this bike after a failure in Aus. And the behaviour was very similar to a stator failure I had on my K3 GSXR in Europe.

I was also hoping this would be the issue as I’d been lugging around a spare stator in my bags (along with some other spares which with my limited mechanical knowledge I had identified as more likely failure points)

But what good was testing on the side of the road.

I’d seen a Motorway Patrol car go past me just moments after I pulled over so decided to wait and see if another one came by so I could make a call to my friends in Islamabad for help (I don’t have a local SIM card)

Broken down and waiting for a police car to pass by

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After about half an hour with no police passing by, I started walking. First to a street cleaner who had no phone and then to a group of soldiers who were also broken down in their Hilux!

Gave up waiting and started walking away and hoping the bike and luggage will still be here when I get back

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Thankfully they let me make a phone call and within the next half hour a little Suzuki truck was on its way to pick me up and take me back to Islamabad to my friend Fahads house.

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Unfortunately as I got set to test I found out my multimeter wires had split due to being rolled up and stored for so long in my luggage so I just decided to pull the stator out and have a look since I had a spare.

It wasn’t super toasty but definitely looked a bit black so in goes the cheap Chinese eBay spare I had been carrying with me.

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Bike was all back together and we jumped it from another battery however it still wouldn’t remain running.

The confidence I’d been feeling about my diagnosis and the fact I had a spare stator started to fade away. If it was the regulator/rectifier (reg/rec) I was in big trouble.

A girl a few weeks ahead of me who had ridden her CBR from Europe had been stuck in Pakistan for nearly a month waiting for a new stator and reg/rec to arrive; I couldn’t afford that sort of delay.

Fahad suggested we take the bike to a small local shop who specialised sport bikes (or heavy bikes as they’re referred to locally)

Of course the bike was dead so the only way to get it there was for Fahad to get on my bike while his brother rode another bike beside him and pushed with his foot through Pakistan traffic!

Once there, we began testing again and my doubt that the cheap Chinese stator was faulty was alleviated, it was making electricity. So it had to be the reg/rec

By some stroke of luck, the owner, Shakka, had an old 2008 CBR reg/rec lying around so after a bit of cut and shut we got it onto my bike and it ran!
While the shop looked like any other small shop, Shakka knew what he was doing and even owned Hayabusas himself.

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I also took the opportunity to get my horn mounted properly and sounding as loud as possible for the upcoming traffic. Till now, I had it held on with cable ties and sounded like a dying mouse.

So, an issue that had left others stranded for nearly a month, I had overcome within the day; ready to take another crack at going to Peshwar for some amazing kebabs!

1am dinner after a marathon day

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