Tech Tuesday: Corrosion

29 Feb 2012

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Written by AMA Pro Racing

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This week’s Tech Tuesday covers an issue that is common to all motorcycles, corrosion. This article will cover how corrosion occurs, what your motorcycle’s manufacturer does to prevent it and what measures you can take to further prevent the onset of corrosion, which could cost you money in repairs.

How Corrosion is Possible:
Corrosion is an electrochemical reaction. Metal is oxidized and moves from a solid to a liquid (ionic) state resulting in the solid losing mass. This corrosion eats away from the solid creating a reduction of flow in voltage which creates resistance. Take a motorcycle’s handlebars for an example. Common to most motorcycles are handlebar switches and buttons, which contain small gaps to allow button movement. Overtime, moisture will seep through these gaps into the control housing and begin to corrode wires and connectors. The corroded wire will have increased resistance, leading up to loss of connectivity resulting in malfunctioning. Corrosion will also make the wire connection brittle and eventually break. This problem could cause further issues or risk of fire if an electrically charged wire/connector were to be severed or be loosened and come into contact with a negative point of contact, like the frame or a bolt. Read On: http://amaproracing.com/ft/news/index.cfm?cid=52094

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