I know what I'll be doing over the Christmas break: troubleshooting my FJR that has been infected with Gremlins. :angry2: Maybe I should install that Gremlin bell someone gave me a while back? <_<
Unrelated (as far as I know) to any maintenance on the bike, earlier this year my headlights flickered off for a second or two and came back on again. It would happen periodically with the only common denominator being my selecting something on the left handlebar switch (HI beam switch, turn signals or windshield adjust). Normal troubleshooting didn't help me narrow it down by slowly actuating switches fully or only partially and pressing at odd angles. Also flexing the wire bundle going down the handlebars didn't recreate the problem.
One especially odd situation occured while getting on the freeway and moving over 5 lanes to get in the HOV lane. Even though the low beams were selected, the high beam indicator on the instrument panel was flashing on and off (and I'm trying to remember, but it might have been in time with the turn signal flash).
The final straw last night was as it was getting dark and I was 15 miles from home. I started the bike after an errand and the high beam indicator and both turn signal indicators on the instrument panel were on, but the headlights were both off. $hit! :angry2: I can't ride home in the dark with no headlights. After operating the lt handlebar switches and wiggling the wire bundle, the headlights came on and dash lights went off. Whew! But on the ride home the same problem occured and wiggling wiring again appeared to get the headlights working again. The final straw was after stopping at the mailbox and riding off when the headlights died again as I'm heading up my long and very dark private road through the woods.
At this point I'm actually happy because I'll take a hard failure over an intermittent problem any day of the week. But I only had limited time to work on the bike, so unless there was a quick fix I was going to have to take the truck a couple days.
I started the bike in the garage and then hit the kill switch so that the headlights would stay on (which of course they won't because the Gremlins have diverted current down some abnormal path). At this point I also notice another problem: the windshield motor sounds like it running continuously. Wow, it's getting more interesting all the time! :huh: Moving the windshield adjust switch in either direction stops the motor running and in one direction the neutral light also goes out. Keeps getting weirder!
So I pull the left handlebar switch off and remove the left handlebar to completely free the wire bundle. All the flexing, pulling, bending and scrunching in the world and no help. I pull left side plastic and disconnect the left handlebard switch connector. Ringing back into the handlebar switch and all switches work normal and no wire is shorted to ground. Duh! I forgot to ring across all wires to check for cross shorts, so that'll be first on the list when I get back to it later this week.
Some might wonder why I'm doing this work when I have lots of years left on the YES warranty, but I can already see the dealer wanting to blame all my farkles for the problem. So if nothing else, I want to make sure my wiring mods are not the problem . And I can just see the bike working fine when they look at it, which will probably lead to shotgunning of parts and extended downtime while the bike sits in the shop. I have modded the horn wiring (original horns are paralled off the Stebel horn and the horn switch is used to pull the coil in the relay) although the horns work like normal and have never had a problem. I also tapped into the tail light wire for the AVCC, ran power for a switched power strip in the tail and did the Barbarian mod.
So the plan is to more thoroughly ring out the left handlebar switch and also check the computer connector in case the Barbarian mod led to loose pins or shorting. In the little time I spent looking at the wiring schematic, I was pulling my hair out trying to find that common link that could cause all those same symptoms at the same time. At this point I can only hope that the hard failure stays until I figure out what's happening.
I don't usually throw problems out there until I figured them out (which I will this weekend), but thought I'd see if anyone has had a similar issue that can point me in the right direction and speed up the process. Less time fixing means more time riding! :yahoo: In any case, I'll report back what I found.
Unrelated (as far as I know) to any maintenance on the bike, earlier this year my headlights flickered off for a second or two and came back on again. It would happen periodically with the only common denominator being my selecting something on the left handlebar switch (HI beam switch, turn signals or windshield adjust). Normal troubleshooting didn't help me narrow it down by slowly actuating switches fully or only partially and pressing at odd angles. Also flexing the wire bundle going down the handlebars didn't recreate the problem.
One especially odd situation occured while getting on the freeway and moving over 5 lanes to get in the HOV lane. Even though the low beams were selected, the high beam indicator on the instrument panel was flashing on and off (and I'm trying to remember, but it might have been in time with the turn signal flash).
The final straw last night was as it was getting dark and I was 15 miles from home. I started the bike after an errand and the high beam indicator and both turn signal indicators on the instrument panel were on, but the headlights were both off. $hit! :angry2: I can't ride home in the dark with no headlights. After operating the lt handlebar switches and wiggling the wire bundle, the headlights came on and dash lights went off. Whew! But on the ride home the same problem occured and wiggling wiring again appeared to get the headlights working again. The final straw was after stopping at the mailbox and riding off when the headlights died again as I'm heading up my long and very dark private road through the woods.
At this point I'm actually happy because I'll take a hard failure over an intermittent problem any day of the week. But I only had limited time to work on the bike, so unless there was a quick fix I was going to have to take the truck a couple days.
I started the bike in the garage and then hit the kill switch so that the headlights would stay on (which of course they won't because the Gremlins have diverted current down some abnormal path). At this point I also notice another problem: the windshield motor sounds like it running continuously. Wow, it's getting more interesting all the time! :huh: Moving the windshield adjust switch in either direction stops the motor running and in one direction the neutral light also goes out. Keeps getting weirder!
So I pull the left handlebar switch off and remove the left handlebar to completely free the wire bundle. All the flexing, pulling, bending and scrunching in the world and no help. I pull left side plastic and disconnect the left handlebard switch connector. Ringing back into the handlebar switch and all switches work normal and no wire is shorted to ground. Duh! I forgot to ring across all wires to check for cross shorts, so that'll be first on the list when I get back to it later this week.
Some might wonder why I'm doing this work when I have lots of years left on the YES warranty, but I can already see the dealer wanting to blame all my farkles for the problem. So if nothing else, I want to make sure my wiring mods are not the problem . And I can just see the bike working fine when they look at it, which will probably lead to shotgunning of parts and extended downtime while the bike sits in the shop. I have modded the horn wiring (original horns are paralled off the Stebel horn and the horn switch is used to pull the coil in the relay) although the horns work like normal and have never had a problem. I also tapped into the tail light wire for the AVCC, ran power for a switched power strip in the tail and did the Barbarian mod.
So the plan is to more thoroughly ring out the left handlebar switch and also check the computer connector in case the Barbarian mod led to loose pins or shorting. In the little time I spent looking at the wiring schematic, I was pulling my hair out trying to find that common link that could cause all those same symptoms at the same time. At this point I can only hope that the hard failure stays until I figure out what's happening.
I don't usually throw problems out there until I figured them out (which I will this weekend), but thought I'd see if anyone has had a similar issue that can point me in the right direction and speed up the process. Less time fixing means more time riding! :yahoo: In any case, I'll report back what I found.
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