I got a little scare when I was checking the bike over the other day. When I went to confirm the spark plug was the correct one I could see that the exposed 3/8 inch of rubber between the wire jacket and the spark plug cap was completely deteriorated and falling off the wire it was insulating. Looking back on a "before" you can see the kink in the wire where the rubber wire insulation simply has let go and no longer can hold it's shape. The spark would simply jump to the path of least resistance which would just let the energy dissipate to the cylinder head.
The wire spark plug wire connects straight to the coil and cannot be replaced so easily. Usually the whole coil and wire needs to be replaced and that isn't cheap. The first thing I did was pull back the wire sheathing to check to see if the rubber underneath it was in ok condition. Yep I have something to work with. The rubber wire is still good so I can shorten it and be on my way.
