06 AE won't start

[dustyrains]

Here is the text of my complaint on the NHSTA site. The complaint confirmation number, or ODI is 10299664
"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."

Nicely written! "Inasmuch" always gets their attention.

Now you've got me worried. 35,000 on Miss Piggy and no problem yet (knock on head). And you don't have you bike totally farkled up, do you? I know it's been discussed elsewhere but if I find a problem, I may de-farkle (is that a word?) my bike before I take it in.

Edit: Has anybody tried to make a comparison between the spider failures and the frame manufacturing numbers? i.e. the first or last series of manufacturing dates? Did all the failures occur at the beginning or end of a production run? The thread started by TurboDave for the AE posters might be useful as it includes the serial number for each bike. (Think we need a Retired Person with enough time to do the cross checking! )

I have several farkles including for heated gear. However, all are directly connected to the battery positive and negative posts, so not relevant.

 

[03HiYoSilver]

Dusty,

Glad you found your problem and that you did not get hurt. Those were amazing pictures of your find and appreciate you sharing those with us.

Good Luck with your fix.

 

[dustyrains]

Dusty,
Glad you found your problem and that you did not get hurt. Those were amazing pictures of your find and appreciate you sharing those with us.

Good Luck with your fix.

Thanks. One more point to note. For months previous to this failure I have periodically noticed the smell of something burning or getting hot when sitting at a stop or when parking. I looked under the chassis, everywhere I could look without tearing plastic off and never saw anything. I just kept chalking it up to some plastic or rubber piece being to close to the exhaust or something. I now believe that ground spider was what I was smelling, but I won't know for sure until I get the bike back with the new harness. I think there have been some recent posts from others about smelling something hot or burnt.

 

[Harald]

Mine wasn't nearly that trashed and it caused me problems. I was going to nominate your bike for the "Ugliest spider" award, but I remember seeing another one posted on the forum with the wires going into the connector also melted!

 

[escapefjrtist]

Looks like I'll be giving mine a closer inspection. Thanks for posting the pics dusty. Hope ahamaY doesn't take too long to supply the new harness.

--G

 

[RadioHowie]

Mine wasn't nearly that trashed and it caused me problems. I was going to nominate your bike for the "Ugliest spider" award, but I remember seeing another one posted on the forum with the wires going into the connector also melted!

I think that would be dcarver's.....

 

[dustyrains]

Update on the fix. Apparently Yamaha came in to inspect the burnt harness. The new main harness that the shop ordered was on back order, so Yamaha gave the ok to solder the grounds together and run an extra connection to the chassis. I think I trust that fix better than a new harness. It should be ready to ride tomorrow. HOOHA!

 

[03HiYoSilver]

Thanks for the Update...you are probably right. Perhaps you'll be riding tomorrow!

 

[JamesK]

Update on the fix. Apparently Yamaha came in to inspect the burnt harness. The new main harness that the shop ordered was on back order, so Yamaha gave the ok to solder the grounds together and run an extra connection to the chassis. I think I trust that fix better than a new harness. It should be ready to ride tomorrow. HOOHA!

Maybe this is the start of Yamaha's intended fix for this problem, they solder and ground all the ground spiders, should be a lot cheaper for them to do this kind of recall and less likely for the multitude of crappy dealers out there to break as many bikes as they would doing something as big as a main harness replacement.

 

[Zorlac]

"they solder and ground all the ground spiders, should be a lot cheaper for them to do this kind of recall and less likely for the multitude of crappy dealers out there"

Shop hands properly soldering six stranded wires that have already oxidized from heat....I highly doubt it.

Some could no doubt, but a good quality wire nut on clean wires would probably be more reliable in most cases.

 

[dustyrains]

"they solder and ground all the ground spiders, should be a lot cheaper for them to do this kind of recall and less likely for the multitude of crappy dealers out there"
Shop hands properly soldering six stranded wires that have already oxidized from heat....I highly doubt it.

Some could no doubt, but a good quality wire nut on clean wires would probably be more reliable in most cases.

If I were doing the repair myself I probably would use a wire nut, then fill it with dielectric grease, then shrink tube it.

 

[dustyrains]

"they solder and ground all the ground spiders, should be a lot cheaper for them to do this kind of recall and less likely for the multitude of crappy dealers out there"
Shop hands properly soldering six stranded wires that have already oxidized from heat....I highly doubt it.

Some could no doubt, but a good quality wire nut on clean wires would probably be more reliable in most cases.

If I were doing the repair myself I probably would use a wire nut, then fill it with dielectric grease, then shrink tube it.

Or maybe these little juju's from posi-lock

 

[cruiser]

Whats stopping the new harness from doing the same thing?

 

[JamesK]

Whats stopping the new harness from doing the same thing?

That's why they should not install the new harness unless it's been soldered, with ground wires run to ground on the chassis, otherwise it will, ala Dcarver.

 

[Harald]

Maybe this is the start of Yamaha's intended fix for this problem, they solder and ground all the ground spiders, should be a lot cheaper for them to do this kind of recall and less likely for the multitude of crappy dealers out there to break as many bikes as they would doing something as big as a main harness replacement.

Now I feel even better about doing the same repair on my smoked ground spider. And having them replace the whole harness would be a hassle because of all my tie-ins to the harness like the AVCC, power strip and Stebel horn. I don't think dealers would be too keen on reattaching wiring to all our farkles.

 

[dustyrains]

The more I read and think about this issue, the more convinced I am that I will never be able to fully trust that my 06 AE is not going to leave me stranded in BFE or worse, cause me to have an accident. I think the only way to feel ok that this issue is not going to come up again down the road is to clip all of the ground spiders out of the harness and solder the wires together and connect back to the chassis. A lot of work, but now is the time to get it done.

 

[dustyrains]

Picked up the bike today from Beaverton Yamaha. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the Yamaha rep authorized the shop to do the repair by soldering that cluster of ground wires together, which I think is probably a better repair than installing a new main harness. My tech, Jason also inspected and greased the other ground caps. They also threw in a little freebie fix on the heated grip control knob, which had gotten stuck due to road grit accumulation.

YES rocks, and so does this forum. As the OP on this thread, I had absolutely no idea what had happened to my bike when it suddenly stopped running and all kinds of weird things were happening around the instrument cluster. Thanks to all those who have posted on this thread I learned a lot. I also made certain that I posted this failure on the safercar.gov website. As BramFrank in Montreal has opined, this is a very serious safety issue. No one has been injured or killed yet by suddenly having their lights or motor fail at the worst possible time, but it is easy to see that it could happen. Luckily for me, mine failed right in my parking slot at my apartment, and the dealership retrieved it for free and it was covered under YES.

So, even though I was without my bike for about 10 days or so, this all turned out in the best possible way with the least amount of drama.

 

[03HiYoSilver]

Dusty,

Thanks for the Good News & Congratualations!

 

[bramfrank]

You HAVE filed your complaint with the NHTSA, haven't you?

And you WERE very clear about the nature of the fault?

You did NOT describe the remedy - it may solve the problem, but it is not what the designers had in mind.

By the way - the wiring must be cut back to well before the point that it burned and it must be tightly twisted and properly soldered, then protected from the elements.

Twisting with a wire nut alone will not work because the wire nut will eventually work loose and the wiring will corrode again.

 

[dustyrains]

You HAVE filed your complaint with the NHTSA, haven't you?
And you WERE very clear about the nature of the fault?

You did NOT describe the remedy - it may solve the problem, but it is not what the designers had in mind.

By the way - the wiring must be cut back to well before the point that it burned and it must be tightly twisted and properly soldered, then protected from the elements.

Twisting with a wire nut alone will not work because the wire nut will eventually work loose and the wiring will corrode again.

It feels like I am being taken to task here.

Here is the text of my complaint on the NHSTA site. The complaint confirmation number, or ODI is 10299664

"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."

As for whether or not I described the remedy or solved the problem, not sure what you are speaking of. I was not present for the actual repair by the shop tech, but I believe he did the job correctly. And I believe the job could be done with a wire nut, such as the ones that can be purchased from posi-lock.com. The job could also be done securely and in a lasting fashion with a common garden variety wire nut, if done correctly. Such as filling the nut with dielectric or silicone, then covering with a shrink tube or other protective wrap.