So drinking time was awasting I jumped in the ute and went for dinner.
I was going to leave it till morning, but opened up the starter switch and found a flattened spring (odd) I streched it out a bit and tried to start it with the metal bits in my hand. Fuck me they get hot quick when you've got a short. So after finding the spring and button that I dropped when they became white hot instantly I opened up the back of the bike and found this.
Oh Joy! The red/blue wires are the -'ve run from the Reg/rec to the engine earth point. After quite a lot of pulling shoving and swearing I opened up all the sleeving to the point where these and all the other earths from front and back are crimped to the single thick black wire connected to the earth on the engine block.
The front loom was fine, the back less fine.
I did the charging mod years ago which effectively replaces the red/blue wires by connecting the reg/rec to the -'ve battery terminal, which is in turn connected to the block, so once I'd separated all the melted plastic I just cut them out. Luckily there was little damage to other wires apart form other earth lines so I wraped all the earths together since it doesn't matter if they touch.
Taped any other wires well where they were damaged rewraped and stashed them all away and it seems to work OK. Took me the whole of Saturday though.
Dunno what caused it, but I'll be keeping a check on them over the next few days just in case.
Wish I'd taken a photo of the rainbow of wires that runs along the left side of the bike when they were all out.
Here's what I cut out, trust me it's not pretty.
