FJRF009.0: Ground Spider Research

Gentlemen;

I started looking at the NHTSA filings and there are some very important things that need to be mentioned;

[SIZE=24pt]You cannot just say there was 'an electrical' or worse, 'unknown' problem.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=24pt]BE CERTAIN YOU SPECIFY THAT THERE WAS A FAILURE OF AN ELECTRICAL CONNECTOR IN THE WIRING HARNESS DUE TO OVERHEATING - otherwise this simply sounds like you have a failed ignition switch.[/SIZE]

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Just had it hit me not 8 hours ago. Clicky

Well, having been through this thread, you know what you have to do next . . . .

To expound a bit on mcatrophy's pics in post #51, on my '07 A the 4 under the tank are right where he shows them to be. The 2 he lists as "two up front" are accessible behind panels A-D without removing the front plastics.

On the left. You see it in relation to the headlight adjusting cable



On the right, it's behind this relay, down where you'd do the windshield auto retract disable. Again you can see the knurled knob for the headlight adjusting cable.



And although not a spider connector, check these too:

screw connection where the battery cable hooks to the engine, bottom right



double spade connector near the right horn. See the small green wire? That's also grounded with the battery cable.



Hope these help.

I realize the ultimate fix is through Yamaha however what would do you guys think of this as a bandaid solution?

I don't have any electrical background but thought I would through out this idea, which pardon my newbie status but how about wrapping the clip in question with this?

(might need a group buy for 1 roll as it's $694) but the cheaper options can be found below....

https://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_U...Lbe870G8G819Fgl

or

https://www.amazon.com/JVCC-CFL-5CA-Copper-...e/dp/B000UZ8SJK

https://www.amazon.com/JVCC-CFL-5CA-Copper-.../ref=pd_cp_hi_2

FRJ Jc said:

I realize the ultimate fix is through Yamaha however what would do you guys think of this as a bandaid solution?

I don't have any electrical background but thought I would through out this idea, which pardon my newbie status but how about wrapping the clip in question with this?

(might need a group buy for 1 roll as it's $694) but the cheaper options can be found below....

https://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_U...Lbe870G8G819Fgl

or

https://www.amazon.com/JVCC-CFL-5CA-Copper-...e/dp/B000UZ8SJK

https://www.amazon.com/JVCC-CFL-5CA-Copper-.../ref=pd_cp_hi_2

Click to expand...

Not sure how this tape would fix it...

I fixed my problem by cutting off the connectors and soldering the wires together and covering with heat shrink covering. This would remove the ground spider and make a solid soldered connection.

Smitty

dustyrains said:

Just had it hit me not 8 hours ago. Clicky

Click to expand...

Here is my complaint confirmation number from the NHTSA site - 10299664. See the text of my complaint at the bottom.

Here are some pics of the totally fried spider, taken just an hour ago.







"This is on a 2006 Yamaha FJR1300AE model motorcycle with about 26k miles on it. I started the motorcycle, it ran for about 1 to 2 seconds then shutdown and would not restart. This was the first and only occurrence. Upon inspection by an authorized dealership service technician it was found to have an overheated, melted ground junction in the main electrical harness. The manufacturer is going to replace the entire main harness under the extended warranty I have. The old harness is being sent back to the OEM for inspection. It is my understanding from monitoring certain internet forums for this machine that other owners are having identical failures. Inasmuch as this defect can cause the motorcycle engine to suddenly stop running, there is the potential for a serious or fatal crash injury."

smitty141 said:

I fixed my problem by cutting off the connectors and soldering the wires together and covering with heat shrink covering. This would remove the ground spider and make a solid soldered connection.
Smitty

Click to expand...

Wish you were still doing tech days in your garage, Smitty.

First off, note that I have an '07A.

Without searching all the topics relating to this gounding issue, I was wondering if the occurrance of this problem in an '08 is rare so far. The reason I ask is that I have a full '08 spare harness that I picked up for pennies (well, 2000 of them) to help integrate my farkles and was thinking I could steal the spiders out of it and install them on my '07 if they are of any better quality (design improvement between '07/'08 ???)

Thinking back over the last six months or so, I remember the bike dying twice unexpectedly, but both times it was with a cold engine at idle, so I attributed it to a little stumble that dropped the idle too low to keep running. Is this the start of the same problem you folks are experiencing?

Also, has anyone tried to tighten the OEM connection by compressing the female terminals a bit? I've had plenty of connectors on my old bikes that simply loosened up and the perfect "smash" on the female spade terminals got the connection back up to top shape again. I could see one of these spiders being inserted at the factory at a slight angle (being forced) and compromising the connection (loose fit) in one or more of the pins. A regular male/female connector tends to engage the pins in the two halves generally aligned. Add a little corrosion and time, and bam, you're pushing it home. It's worse if its the actual grounded wire of the 6, it would take out all the circuits in that ground bus.

Comments anybody?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, from my personal experience, the ground spider (left front under the tank) does not have to be totally nuked to "kill" your bike without any warning. The pics below show the condition of my spider which was sufficient to disable the bike, it looks like the thermal runaway was just beginning and maybe didn't continue because I already had dielectric grease on it from an earlier inspection and service I performed on it at which time it was in perfect condition. I was able to giggle it around and a zip tie over the top to keep it in place on the side of the road after pulling the tank off to get the bike moving and get home, since the wires hadn't started being effected yet.





To fix the spider problem I was going to do what others did and snip the connectors off, but upon closer examination and seeing what a PITA it would be to strip and solder the wire stubs I decided to extract the individual pins from the plastic connectors and re-use the spider and pins for the soldering. I found that extracting the pins with something like this $5 pick was really easy and did not damage the pins or wires.



I used some sandpaper to remove any oxidation and rough up the spider pins and cleaned off the pins and connector plugs with alcohol. I then rotated each wire plug so that the crimped sides would face out when the spider was inserted back in the wire plugs. This enabled me to solder the plugs to the spider pins and ensure I also soldered the plugs to the wire they are crimped to. I also zip tied the wires coming into the spider plugs about a 1/4 of an inch below the crimped plugs to ensure there would be no tension/stress transferred onto the solder joints. After that I ran a single heavier wire from each spider to the nearest chassis bolt. The only exception being the "killer" spider from which I ran two separate ground wires (with each wire wrapped around it's side of the spider pins/plugs) as backup.

I am confident that I will not be revisiting this problem in the future since the crappy OEM grounding for the harness is now a backup ground path, because my ground wires are heavier and "closer" to ground, offering the path of least resistance.

The more of these burned up ground spiders I see, the more I think my initial reaction to them was right.

What a stupid design!! :blink:

RZ350 said:

First off, note that I have an '07A.
Without searching all the topics relating to this gounding issue, I was wondering if the occurrance of this problem in an '08 is rare so far. The reason I ask is that I have a full '08 spare harness that I picked up for pennies (well, 2000 of them) to help integrate my farkles and was thinking I could steal the spiders out of it and install them on my '07 if they are of any better quality (design improvement between '07/'08 ???)

Thinking back over the last six months or so, I remember the bike dying twice unexpectedly, but both times it was with a cold engine at idle, so I attributed it to a little stumble that dropped the idle too low to keep running. Is this the start of the same problem you folks are experiencing?

Also, has anyone tried to tighten the OEM connection by compressing the female terminals a bit? I've had plenty of connectors on my old bikes that simply loosened up and the perfect "smash" on the female spade terminals got the connection back up to top shape again. I could see one of these spiders being inserted at the factory at a slight angle (being forced) and compromising the connection (loose fit) in one or more of the pins. A regular male/female connector tends to engage the pins in the two halves generally aligned. Add a little corrosion and time, and bam, you're pushing it home. It's worse if its the actual grounded wire of the 6, it would take out all the circuits in that ground bus.

Comments anybody?

Click to expand...

My spiders were all pretty snug fitting even the failed one.

I think the only way to check the current state of your ground spiders is a physical inspection. And since you're already there might as well solder them up or at least put some dielectric grease on them.

If you look closely at the wire bundle of the main spider (front under the tank) you'll notice that the burnt pin seems to always be the same, it so happens that this pin is connected to the thickest wire, hence i would guess this to be the grounding wire. I don't know how much current this wire is designed to carry but it looks a bit small to be grounding 5 circuits.

I would hazard a guess that all GenII bikes have the same (at least in this respect) wiring harness design. The '08-09 have i guess not built up enough miles yet to start causing problems.

I would agree with the above assessment completely.

The heaviest gauge wire would most likely be the one actually going to ground. And it is probably burning up because the contact (not the beefier wire) is getting too hot due to excess current, and also the contact's resistance being increased by corrosion.

Not having a 2nd gen, I can't do the testing, but really ... someone here should figure out which devices are getting their grounds through this spider (seems to be the only one that goes). From the usual symptoms we can make guesses... but it would be great to have the facts.

Fred W said:

I would agree with the above assessment completely.
The heaviest gauge wire would most likely be the one actually going to ground. And it is probably burning up because the contact (not the beefier wire) is getting too hot due to excess current, and also the contact's resistance being increased by corrosion.

Not having a 2nd gen, I can't do the testing, but really ... someone here should figure out which devices are getting their grounds through this spider (seems to be the only one that goes). From the usual symptoms we can make guesses... but it would be great to have the facts.

Click to expand...

Fred, being a GenII owner I've been paying a lot of attention to this problem, this one is by far the most common and one with most dangerous results. However I know of two other spiders people have had problems with:

1. Smitty: front left near the left fork

2. Harold: under the left headlight

Fred W said:

Not having a 2nd gen, I can't do the testing, but really ... someone here should figure out which devices are getting their grounds through this spider (seems to be the only one that goes). From the usual symptoms we can make guesses... but it would be great to have the facts.

Click to expand...

I might be able to track down the circuits easier then anyone else since I have a spare harness sitting on the bench and have every branch connector identified as to function. Just trace each wire in that spider to its connector and we got it. My only problem right now is I don't know exactly how this snake routes through the bike, but I don't think that will be to hard to figure out since the termination points are known. I also have the service manual and I think it is explained in detail there. Plus, I know someone who happens to have some or all of the tupperware off to maybe answer a few questions if they arise (JamesK).

On the main harness, I count 4 spiders and on the secondary harness, I count 3.

JamesK, if you can tell me the colors of the wires going into your faulty ground spider, that would help. All wires in each spider are black, but they have different secondary striping from spider to spider.

I think I can help out but it may have to wait until next week as I will be pretty busy this weekend.

RZ350 said:

Fred W said:

Not having a 2nd gen, I can't do the testing, but really ... someone here should figure out which devices are getting their grounds through this spider (seems to be the only one that goes). From the usual symptoms we can make guesses... but it would be great to have the facts.

Click to expand...

I might be able to track down the circuits easier then anyone else since I have a spare harness sitting on the bench and have every branch connector identified as to function. Just trace each wire in that spider to its connector and we got it. My only problem right now is I don't know exactly how this snake routes through the bike, but I don't think that will be to hard to figure out since the termination points are known. I also have the service manual and I think it is explained in detail there. Plus, I know someone who happens to have some or all of the tupperware off to maybe answer a few questions if they arise (JamesK).

On the main harness, I count 4 spiders and on the secondary harness, I count 3.

JamesK, if you can tell me the colors of the wires going into your faulty ground spider, that would help. All wires in each spider are black, but they have different secondary striping from spider to spider.

I think I can help out but it may have to wait until next week as I will be pretty busy this weekend.

Click to expand...

RZ, I would be happy to help, however i've already re-installed the front cowl, so i'll take some pictures of the wires on the remaining spiders were possible/accessible.

Also, don't forget there is another, 8th spider near the ECU plug. So 4 under the tank (1 each at the front and 2 next to each other on the left rear near the throttle bodies), 3 in the front (1 under each headlight and 1 near the left fork) and 1 next to the ECU plug.

This is just me, but given that you have the harness sitting on the bench would it not be easier to simply "buzz" it out?

Yes 8 spiders total. There are 2 on the main that are right next to each other, sorry.

I'm just trying to establish on my harness which are spiders identified in this thread. I have no idea without a studying the manual, for instance, which 4 on my harness are the four under the tank.

I'm certain I can figure it out without much trouble, but a little color coding would speed things up.

RZ350 said:

Yes 8 spiders total. There are 2 on the main that are right next to each other, sorry.
I'm just trying to establish on my harness which are spiders identified in this thread. I have no idea without a studying the manual, for instance, which 4 on my harness are the four under the tank.

I'm certain I can figure it out without much trouble, but a little color coding would speed things up.

Click to expand...

These are the only/best pics I have/can get, my camera is too crappy, click on image to enlarge. All left/right directions are wrt sitting on the bike.

Next to ECU Plug



Two together under the tank rear LHS



Under the tank front RHS



Under the tank front LHS



Front LHS under Left Headlight



Front RHS under Right Headlight



I can't get any good pics of the spider near the left fork, maybe Smitty141 has some since this was the spider he had to repair. This is from his writeup

Thanks JamesK - this should help. I'll get this all figured out and report back.

If nothing else, knowing which functions run through the same ground bus should help me with troubleshooting this beast after the Y.E.S. runs out. Don't they say most electrical problems are grounding issues? Anyway, I love a good puzzle.

Gentlemen and women;

[SIZE=14pt]YOU MUST REPORT EACH OCCURRENCE OF THIS ISSUE[/SIZE]

[SIZE=24pt]You cannot just say there was 'an electrical' or worse, 'unknown' problem.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=24pt]BE CERTAIN YOU SPECIFY THAT THERE WAS A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF AN ELECTRICAL CONNECTOR IN THE WIRING HARNESS DUE TO OVERHEATING - otherwise this simply sounds like you have a failed ignition switch.[/SIZE]

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.