Friends bike burning up ??

A friend of mine went through his wiring trying to figure out why the coil spring around his front brake line is getting so hot...
It was literally smoking a couple weeks ago, so he shut it off and went through everything.
Problem seemed to dissapear, then he went for a ride and left his bike sit while he went for a walk.
When he came back he saw a big cloud of smoke coming from his bike.
The front brake line was literally melted completely through from the coil spring.
What on earth could be causing this?
1985 maxim liquid cooled.

 

The only thing I could think of would be the brake dragging, the caliper getting way hot and transferring heat to the protective coil.

 

Yes sounds like brake drag. Amazing your friend wasn't aware of that! He was lucky the brake fluid didn't boil and lose all braking power completely 8O

 

He swears it's not the brake fluid heating up..
He thinks its some kind of electrical short in his ignition causing it, but there isnt any wires there to short out... so he thinks that somehow its grounding out through the coil spring thing around his break line.
Any possible way this could happen, or is it really the brake fluid heating up?

Thanks.
Ron.

 

He swears its the coil spring thats melting the brake line some how

 

It is. But not all by itself.

The brake is dragging, the caliper BODY is getting hot and transferring the heat to the spring. That's the only thing it could POSSIBLY be; it's NOT electrical.

 

ok, thanks for the info

 

400/285 dry/wet boiling point, for dot 3.
I can't see it getting that hot, even if it did would it melt into a rubber hose, since the hose would be speced higher than the fluid could get. Its a wire out in the air, how hot would the fork tube be. If It's electrical it needs 2 connections, so just make sure one end doesn't touch anything

 

Why doesn't the fluid melt the hose where it attaches to the cylinder

 

the only way to get that spring electrified would be to have a bare wire touching it.... which could theoretically be possible, but doubtful. Not to mention very obvious to find.

get the front end off the ground and spin the wheel... guarantee you have a caliper dragging....

My thought is similar to Fitz's, the caliper is getting seriously hot and transferring the heat to both the bottom of the hose and the spring coil thingy....

 

Problem solved. And it wasn't the brakes dragging.

It was a dead short in the headlight wiring... a wire had a bare spot rubbed through and was shorting out inside the headlight assembly.
Some how the juice was heating up the wire coil and melted the break line.

Thanks for all your ideas though

 

Thanks for the update! That's certainly a weird one.....