Ah Geez....Now What?

[dutchinterceptor]

So I left work today and headed out for a beautiful ride through the countryside and eventually worked my way over to a local park where my wife was playing tennis. Watched her and several other ladies knock fuzzy green balls around the court for about an hour. After leaving I made it about a hundred feet and the bike went totally dead, lights and all. All of the lights flickered back on for a second but immediately went off again. By this time I had coasted to the edge of the road totally dumbfounded.

All of the electric threads started scrolling through my head as I wondered what could be the trouble. I had started pulling my helmet and gloves off and suddenly everything came back to life. The fuel gauge was flashing empty even though it has a half tank of gas and my clock/tripmeters were reset as if one of the battery cables had been removed. Once I got home I checked the cables and they are tight but it's too dark to start pulling tupperware.

Wonder what it could be this time.

[KanadianKen]

Check the blue connector first. Non ABS - its on the left side......

[Lee 2002]

Wonder what it could be this time.

After the last several days, my initial thought would be water got somewhere it doesn't belong and has had a couple of days to cause some corrosion.

I would be afraid that you are going to have to have a complete failure to troubleshoot the problem out and find where it really is. Nothing worse than an intermittent failure that appears to remedy itself.

[dutchinterceptor]

Check the blue connector first. Non ABS - its on the left side......

Yeah, it's similar to what happened the first time the blue connector welded itself together.

Lee, surely two days of rain wouldn't have done anything. :laughing6-hehe: Guess I may have to start by cleaning every connector.

[gll429]

check the battery conections.. make sure they are tight.. make sure the battery is full. a dry battery will suddenly stop like that.

[dutchinterceptor]

check the battery conections.. make sure they are tight.. make sure the battery is full. a dry battery will suddenly stop like that.

Battery cables are good and tight, no corrosion. The battery is sealed and is less than a year old.

[kaldek]

check the battery conections.. make sure they are tight.. make sure the battery is full. a dry battery will suddenly stop like that.

Battery cables are good and tight, no corrosion. The battery is sealed and is less than a year old.

Check your main fuse B as well - take out the fuse, check for damage, check the holder for signs of melting.

[kaldek]

Actually, I'm just thinking about this and it's not a behaviour I have experienced. None of my troubles ever resulted in my fuel gauge showing wierd stuff.

This sounds more like a bad ground/short. For example of your fuel gauge is showing empty when it's not, it means the path through that circuit probably has no resistance or very little resistance. Hence, a short to ground.

You can check your blue connector ground, and also the main ground line under the rear of the tank right near the pivot bolts. If that's gone funny, then electricty will find a different path to ground, which is not what you want.

[kaldek]

Oh also a reason the bike can die here is the fuel cut off relay and engine stop relay are located up there in the front wiring harness. If you get transient power issues they will trip out - for example one of the first signs my main fuse B has fried is the engine stop relay tripping out on me and the bike dying - sometimes while riding!

[2thdr]

Looks like you've got lots of electrical mods by your signature but I don't see Tightwad's VFRness. Have you done that?

[Tightwad]

He did his own version of the VFRness as I recall, prior to me making it.

Dutch - How about you come to my place, and while you figure why my bike acts funny before it warms up, I will check yours out for electrical possibilities...or something like that.

Check the bottom of the fuse panels for corrosion as well...but I would guess it is an intermittent open wire (a short would typically blow a fuse)

[HispanicSlammer]

Yea break out the dielectric grease and hit all the connectors you can and beef up the common ground connector. I am sure your romp in the ozarks rain had nothing to do with it. I am really envious, but after riding a bit today I am not sure I would have been able to follow - boy I am out of practice and rusty.

[kaldek]

Check the bottom of the fuse panels for corrosion as well...but I would guess it is an intermittent open wire (a short would typically blow a fuse)

Good point - open wire is much more likely than a short to ground. The whole fuel gauge thing I probably got backwards - I should go and test this by disconnecting my fuel gauge wires and see what happens. $50 says the gauge goes to zero!

[Knute]

My '04 did this to me, turned out it was the kill switch. Haven't fixed it yet, but it is touchy and needs to be cleaned. Good luck, hope its something simple.

[dutchinterceptor]

He did his own version of the VFRness as I recall, prior to me making it.

Dutch - How about you come to my place, and while you figure why my bike acts funny before it warms up, I will check yours out for electrical possibilities...or something like that.

Check the bottom of the fuse panels for corrosion as well...but I would guess it is an intermittent open wire (a short would typically blow a fuse)

Joshua, still having issues with the engine eh?

I did the ground fix, and beefed up the wiring to the main fuse along with getting the front harness replaced. On my way to work this morning it hiccuped briefly but ran fine this afternoon. This weekend I'll tear into it to see what I can find.

Thanks all for the suggestions.

[Tightwad]

He did his own version of the VFRness as I recall, prior to me making it.

Dutch - How about you come to my place, and while you figure why my bike acts funny before it warms up, I will check yours out for electrical possibilities...or something like that.

Check the bottom of the fuse panels for corrosion as well...but I would guess it is an intermittent open wire (a short would typically blow a fuse)

Joshua, still having issues with the engine eh?

I did the ground fix, and beefed up the wiring to the main fuse along with getting the front harness replaced. On my way to work this morning it hiccuped briefly but ran fine this afternoon. This weekend I'll tear into it to see what I can find.

Thanks all for the suggestions.

Still questioning why it runs the way it does...too nervous to just ride it, and lost my motivation to trouble shoot it (funner projects came into the garage...)

"My name is Joshua, and I am a VFR loser..."

[dutchinterceptor]

Well, yesterday I geared up to head home and when I hit the starter it spun over for just a second and then everything went dead.....nothing! Jiggled the key switch, kill switch, starter button and nothing. I kicked the sidestand out and when I leaned the bike over the clock came back on. Maybe sidestand switch or tip sensor? When I stood it back up everything went dead. Leaned against the seat and the clock flickered on and back off. Pulled the seat and as I grabbed the fuse holder to check it and noticed the melted connector. It's completely fused together and wouldn't pry apart. Sucks to be me.:fing02:

[Serenity_VFR]

That'll buff right out...

[spud786]

Dutch

Had you ever done any prepping work on that connector, if so what did you use?

[Knute]

Well, yesterday I geared up to head home and when I hit the starter it spun over for just a second and then everything went dead.....nothing! Jiggled the key switch, kill switch, starter button and nothing. I kicked the sidestand out and when I leaned the bike over the clock came back on. Maybe sidestand switch or tip sensor? When I stood it back up everything went dead. Leaned against the seat and the clock flickered on and back off. Pulled the seat and as I grabbed the fuse holder to check it and noticed the melted connector. It's completely fused together and wouldn't pry apart. Sucks to be me.:fing02:

I've got an '04 myself and I really... really don't like seeing stuff like this. :excl: Sorry to see it, guess it'd be nice to figure out why it happened?

[dutchinterceptor]

Dutch

Had you ever done any prepping work on that connector, if so what did you use?

Only thing I did was check it periodically.

[KanadianKen]

Dutch - I might have one of those assemblies - let me know if you need it.

[KanadianKen]

Dutch - I do have it. Here's what I've got:

Will look for the red connector piece as well - I might have it on my spare "wrecked" harness.

EDIT - I don't have that red connector - however - the posts it connects to are all accessible by using a female terminal. YOu have to do some repair wiring anyway - you could just use slip on female connectors and go that way. A Red connector would be better though.

[Serenity_VFR]

I've got an '04 myself and I really... really don't like seeing stuff like this. :fing02: Sorry to see it, guess it'd be nice to figure out why it happened?

Looks to me that the Red wire off of the load side of "Main Fuse A" burned off at the 4P connector (actually only 3 wires used on 4P) Why this happened is more of a mystery. Theoretically this Red wire is fused right here @ 30A -but if you have a constant 30A load it might be enough power to sizzle this connector over time without ever blowing the fuse.

Where is this load coming from? Good question.

Perhaps there was a low-impedance short somewhere in the control circuit. This positive Red wire pretty much runs everything in the whole bike. It's fused down just about everywhere in the bike though.

Perhaps the OP put in some anti-ox grease in the 4P connector and got too much bridging between the Red wire and the Green/Red (which is a ground) or even to the 3rd wire, the Yellow/Red (which is the positive half of the coil that triggers the starter relay). Hard to tell. The burn-up seems to be localized at the Red wire though (which is totally burned to the point that you can't recognize it as a red wire any more.

Maybe, just maybe, there is an issue with "Main Fuse B" and somehow the R/R charging circuit is finding it's way back to the battery through "Main Fuse A" or if there is an issue with the rectification of clean DC power it's getting into your system and causing all sorts of transient A/C surges in what should be clean DC. AC in the DC side can do some really weird things.

I'd do a complete check of the R/R charging circuit to make sure it is behaving once I replaced this starter solenoid/Main Fuse A block (hell, I'd just ditch this undersized POS and re-do it with a generic unit from an auto-parts store and put in an external ATX or ATC 30A fuseblock for "Main Fuse A" next to "Main Fuse B" snapped onto the battery box if I couldn't source the VFR-specific green unit cheap.

I'd also check my grounds REALLY well with specific attention to the ground at the frame just above the right footpeg. Remember, any ground to a cast or extruded aluminum casting will be very hard to see corrosion with the naked eye -even if you have it apart. Just sand all the surfaces of the ring connector and the face of the aluminum frame where it contacts it and re-assemble with anti-oxidant grease (DO NOT USE DIELECTRIC like I've seen some people say here. You want to decrease the resistance to zero -not add an insulator. Aluminum oxide looks just like good aluminum. In fact, aluminum oxidizes to a nice gray color very quickly and it is a good insulator even in a very VERY thin layer. My theory is that most all R/R charging and other electrical issues originate at this main ground point. If it sucks, it's going to cause all sorts of issues and you really can't tell it sucks by looking at it.

My advice is to disassemble this main frame ground at least every 2 years and sand the surfaces and reassemble with anti-ox grease. This might be the key to the R/R issue, as it is often overlooked because on the surface it "looks" really good. Looks can lie. If it were a steel frame you could actually get away with a lot of surface rust and the metal/metal contact under that would still be fine. With aluminum it's really tricky. Looks can deceive.

[Serenity_VFR]

Cross reference with TomG33's excellent Electrical Ladder Diagram for the 6th gen which makes is easy to follow what all the circuits do. The FSM's wiring diagram is a maze of tiny close-spaced parallel and crossing lines that are hard to follow without a ruler or other straight-edge to suss out what is going where.