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Gear indicator error


sharkey

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Got 1400miles on my 2014 VFR.  I'ved noticed 3X that the gear indicator goes to a solid line particularly going from 2nd to 3rd?  Has anybody else had this happen?  Ideas to the cause or is the gear indicator bad?

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On 9/30/2017 at 10:52 PM, armod said:

You might not be securely in gear.

I've seen it before it's slipped from 2nd to neutral and when I've hit a false neutral.

 

Yeah I thought about that but I was like no I been riding 12 years and haven't had issues before.   It's my third Honda and I was thinking this ain't normal but if you'll say so....

 

Thanks for the info.  Gonna add a can soon and the transformation should be done.  I have Shad cases, TRex protectors, and the bar risers on mine.  It's a nice ST bike.

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I've had this happen twice. The first time it sorted itself out in seconds, the next time I had to switch off and on again to fix it.

 

My previous bike didn't have a gear indicator. It's amazing how soon you take it for granted!

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I have also had this happen twice.  The first time it lasted for a couple of minutes.  the second time it lasted for about 20 minutes until I finished the trip tuned the bike off.  I hasn't happened since that time for about one month.

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Usually, it's because I haven't shifted decisively enough, once or twice it's happened. One other time, it just messed up out of nowhere and took several minutes to regain its bearing.


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I had it start doing this at about 1450 miles. It got to where it did it all the time. It also spun around like a Windows machine hour glassing. I took it to the dealer and they said it was a "pin connector" but didn't say where it was or what they actually did. It was covered under warranty and so far it has been working like it should. 

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In answer to the question of does it happen with the quick shift fitted, it does! Happened to me a few times. It seems to happen if you don't make a totally positive gear change. I think the system works by comparing road speed to engine revs and works out the gear form there so if you fluff the shift a bit it loses its reference and takes a while to sort itself out. 

As others have said it normally takes a few seconds to settle but sometimes you have to switch off and back on again.

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  • Member Contributer
On 11 October 2017 at 2:22 AM, Smiler said:

In answer to the question of does it happen with the quick shift fitted, it does! Happened to me a few times. It seems to happen if you don't make a totally positive gear change. I think the system works by comparing road speed to engine revs and works out the gear form there so if you fluff the shift a bit it loses its reference and takes a while to sort itself out. 

As others have said it normally takes a few seconds to settle but sometimes you have to switch off and back on again.

Hi Smiler.

Some info for you regards the Gear Position Indicator. Suggest you download the Service Manual its great reference material.

 

The Gear Indication comes off three gear position switches in the gear box, they form a logical input to the ECU for gear position.

 

As to why they would state that Speed and RPM is relevant doesn't seem to make any sense as you can happily shift through all the gears at any speed and RPM and still get the correct gear indication.. HOWEVER, at the risk of being shot down in flames!, state that RPM and Speed inputs might only be required when a Quick Shifter is fitted.

 

Cheers.

Grum

Gear_Switch.JPG

VFR800F_Gear_Position001.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've had the indicator fail a few times now too, however in all but one case the bike figured it out after i went on and off the throttle in the same gear. as far as i can tell, here's what's happening:

 

the manual mentions that the ECM uses three shift drum sensors as well as rear wheel speed and rpm to calculate the gear position (Grum, it sounds as though RPM and rear wheel speed are always active-- the summary blurb on page 1-36 says "The ECM determines the gear position based on the status of the switches, vehicle speed, and engine rev and sends the position information..." this also explains why they say your indicator may fail if you change the front and rear sprocket ratio). seeing as the two main ways to calculate gear position are to count directly off the shift lever/drum or to look at speed versus rpm, i'm guessing that the ECM does two separate calculations for gear position and then compares them to make sure they match. i assume they did this for redundancy; if the switches fail, there is the speed/rpm calculation and if the speed/calculation fails, there are the drum sensors (if both fail, i believe the official guidelines say to curl into the fetal position and cry). from a design standpoint it's a pretty smart thing to do, however in practice i think sometimes these two inputs confuse each other and cause the system to throw an error.

 

So, when you shift, there are two things that might happen wrong: A) one or more shift drum sensors doesn't engage properly and/or B) a dip or spike in rpm (as in a throttle blip) clashes with the rear wheel speed and gives the little circuit that calculates gear position the trip of its life. in either case, the ECM then sees that the drum sensors are indicating a vastly different gear than the speed/rpm circuit, goes "wtf, am i on acid?" and recalculates. but only the engineers can say if that's what's really happening or not.

 

to conjecture further from my own experiences with the indicator, it seems as though the calculation part of the system works best off multiple data points, seeing how speed changes as rpm does instead of just going off of a single steady velocity. i've noticed that the error goes away faster, in fact, seems to depend on me rolling on and off the throttle to fix it. or it could be that loading and unloading the gearbox like that lets a partially-engaged shift drum slide fully into place, thus getting all the sensors to align properly, i don't know. however, there was one time where the only way i could get the system to fix itself was to turn the bike off and back on, which makes me think that instance was a freaked out drum sensor and all the other times were just throttle blips and cuts making the ECM have an existential crisis. again, only the engineers can really say what's happening.

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