FJRF009.1: Intermittent Ground Wire

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The news of this potential recall is somewhat bitter-sweet to me. But let me explain...

 

On one hand, I'm happy that all those forum members bitten by and those potentially to be bitten by the spiders, as well as all the non-forum members that have no idea about it will finally get some help before someone gets seriously hurt.

 

On the other hand, I'm a bit concerned what it means for me and others in my situation. All my prior research proved to me (and hopefully others) where the problem was and I took measures to guard against. My worry about a spider bite has been gone for quite a while now.

 

But I was in a similar situation several years ago with my Tiger's fuel fitting safety recall. By the time the recall came out, I had already replaced the lousy plastic fittings with more robust metal ones. I took my bike to the dealer for some other service and because the VIN popped up on the effected list, the dealer would not release the bike to me until it was fixed. I guess I could understand the liability if they had given it back and the darn thing burned up or worse. I let them do it and the next day I swapped out the improved plastic fittings back to my superior parts.

 

The point is, there is no way I'm going to let the dealer swap the harness out, if that is the OEM fix. In fact, I really don't care to have them do anything with it. I'm totally confident road runner's harnesses solved the problem, and I'm sure the buyer's of Brodie's harnesses feel the same way. And I really don't feel like arguing with the dealer whenever I take the bike in for other service.

 

Regardless of my situation, however, I'm still committed to solving this problem (now possibly at an OEM level) and will do anything in my power to assist those in doing so.

 
Well I'm glad to see this is finally going to be resolved by Yamaha. Thanks you to all that helped get it done. I knew it would happen eventually.

I have seen a tech bulletin on the same issue on Yamaha snowmobiles. What they had the dealer do is add another 6 pin spider connector, and then run that to battery ground. For example, They may add a 6 pin spider connector to the S4, or piggy back it by taking 2 wires out of the S4 (most likely the 2 fan wires) and putting them into the new spider. The bulletin was specific about which wires to remove. Then run 2 wires from the new spider to the S4 (were the 2 fan wires came from). Then the 2 remaining wires in the new spider get run directly to battery ground.

This would be a very cost effective way for them to fix the issue. It would only be a couple spider connectors and a few feet of wire. I would have offered it, but I didn't learn of this until well after my overload harnesses were being made and sold. Plus doing it this way involves removing wires from the spiders, which can be tough if you don't know how to do it without damaging the connector. The main reason I offered my harnesses is they are a plug N play deal that just about anyone can do.

If they do it this way then both Brodies and my harnesses could stay in place. I really think it will be something like this, because I can't see them changing all the factory harnesses, that would be way to much time, and money.

Thanks Yamaha for taking care of this,

Art

 
If that's what you think, then you are indeed misguided. I have it on EXCELLENT authority that what drove the NHTSA to consider the problem at all was Transport Canada. There was a high level teleconference a few weeks ago between the agencies.

Chalking up negative votes to my posts isn't going to change the fact that what those two did could well have been done three years ago - but it wasn't and that's because no one in the US bureaucracy was interested - and they weren't until TC upgraded the issue to a level-3 problem and then got the NHTSA involved.

Now I am not minimising that ionbeam and bkrk12 made a bang-up and organised presentation to whomever they did, but it would not have happened without intervention from the Canadians

Oh - and I've not ever attacked Yamaha directly except to decry their complete denial of the problem in every manner possible - and then only Yamaha Canada, who spent altogether too much energy trying to prove that the issue didn't exist, but that if it did, then it must be our Farkles (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

As to the change in part numbers; The 2008 harness is also different from the 2006 - and all Gen-IIs have spiders.
Dude. You're an ass.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make, but why are your panties in such a wad? No slight was meant towards you at any time.

???

 
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If that's what you think, then you are indeed misguided. I have it on EXCELLENT authority that what drove the NHTSA to consider the problem at all was Transport Canada. There was a high level teleconference a few weeks ago between the agencies.

Chalking up negative votes to my posts isn't going to change the fact that what those two did could well have been done three years ago - but it wasn't and that's because no one in the US bureaucracy was interested - and they weren't until TC upgraded the issue to a level-3 problem and then got the NHTSA involved.

Now I am not minimising that ionbeam and bkrk12 made a bang-up and organised presentation to whomever they did, but it would not have happened without intervention from the Canadians

Oh - and I've not ever attacked Yamaha directly except to decry their complete denial of the problem in every manner possible - and then only Yamaha Canada, who spent altogether too much energy trying to prove that the issue didn't exist, but that if it did, then it must be our Farkles (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

As to the change in part numbers; The 2008 harness is also different from the 2006 - and all Gen-IIs have spiders.
Dude. You're an ass.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make, but why are your panties in such a wad? No slight was meant towards you at any time.

???
Canadians are a very sensitive people.

:)

 
I'll try to get this right the first time out because I still am barred from editing my posts:

If that's what you think, then you are indeed misguided. I have it on EXCELLENT authority that what drove the NHTSA to consider the problem at all was Transport Canada. There was a high level teleconference a few weeks ago between the agencies.

Chalking up negative votes to my posts isn't going to change the fact that what those two did could well have been done three years ago - but it wasn't and that's because no one in the US bureaucracy was interested - and they weren't until TC upgraded the issue to a level-3 problem and then got the NHTSA involved.

Now I am not minimising that ionbeam and bkrk12 made a bang-up and organised presentation to whomever they did, but it would not have happened without intervention from the Canadians

Oh - and I've not ever attacked Yamaha directly except to decry their complete denial of the problem in every manner possible - and then only Yamaha Canada, who spent altogether too much energy trying to prove that the issue didn't exist, but that if it did, then it must be our Farkles (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

As to the change in part numbers; The 2008 harness is also different from the 2006 - and all Gen-IIs have spiders.
Dude. You're an ass.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make, but why are your panties in such a wad? No slight was meant toward you at any time.

???
Of course you don't. Because I was quoting Ignacio's post and included yours to keep it in context - but of course you only saw what you wanted to see. And naturally, as I predicted in the post, the requisite negative votes were clicked. Truly mature behaviour.

I started the campaign to deal with what became known as the 'spider' issue just over two years ago because, with my engineering background and career involvement with life-safety issues my sensibilities were offended by Yamaha's 'head in the sand' approach to what was clearly a design defect.

That campaign took the form of a thread to convince people who suffered the problem to file formal complaints with the NHTSA - I spent time getting those who suffered the issue to file reports and exhorting members here to respond to the poll in order to try and determine what the underlying causal element might be. I also corresponded with various people about possible solutions and such and that thread is now some 28 pages long and has had more than 31,000 views (if you can believe what the board reports), more than any of the FJRF threads except the ignition failure one.

It has served as the information central for the problem and contains RZ350's load reports, key photos and a lot more.

Until my own machine was impacted I never contacted Yamaha Corporate in either country and said nothing negative about them here beyond the fact that I was totally amazed that they could ignore a problem that has affected something on the order of 15% of the rolling fleet and was a serious life safety issue. And even then, my posts took the form of factual reports and observations only.

Having spent 25 years in mission critical communications I am very familiar with the concept of how a failure can cost a life - I also appreciate that there are corporate liabilities, but there are also corporate responsibilities. When riders reported Yamaha's complete denial of the issue, yet gave detailed instructions to dealers and replaced wiring harnesses on out of warranty machines at the same time, I may have commented on the board, but beyond strongly soliciting a US-based champion step up for the cause (because the NHTSA would not listen to a Canadian riding a Canadian machine) I have had NO interaction with Yamaha or the authorities in the US on this matter.

And who stepped up to push the issue? Did you? Did anyone? NO ONE DID.

More amazing to me was the fact that the NHTSA actively declined to investigate the problem even though there were 23 filed complaints on their web site out of a population of likely fewer than 10,000 machines in total.

But that was the extent of my involvement until MY bike was bitten and I contacted Transport Canada in May of 2010.

I immediately started an exchange with the lead defect investigator and we are now friends.

My comment to the original thread was really no different than that which I predicted (and was told would likely never come to pass by those who supposedly know better: That there would never be a recall) . . . I wrote (and fulfilled my statement) that if they DID announce a recall I would NOT applaud them, because they did NOT step up, but rather were forced through the efforts of others to make good on a serious shortcoming (which it now seems has permeated other machines they make) - so I said I would write that it was about time. I did that and I meant it.

Cypress had to know about the issue because it was that far back that were were told that a certain dealer in Atlanta was seeing quite a few of the Gen-II machines come though with spider bites. Clearly his could not have been the only one. Yamaha HAD to have been notified since many of the machines were under warranty. We also knew that they were telling customers that theirs was 'the first' and that they had 'never heard of the problem', yet their dealers were being told exactly where to look and what to fix - a conundrum that can only be explained by way of a form of duplicity. Why? Because many of the riders were speaking with Yamaha support techs, the same people that interact with dealers. Make all the excuses you like. The reality is that this has been reported here by others as recently as last week.

Now, I'm not quite sure just what kind of vinegar (as Ignacio has called it) I am supposed to have been using in my 'fight' with Yamaha . . . . . I am not having a fight with anyone. I am simply trying to prevent people from being killed. My own machine has been patched, since Yamaha's original 'it is fine' inspection of last year resulted in my almost being run down last month. There is nothing 'in it' for me to get Yamaha to fix the issue because MY bike will not melt down again since I soldered in my jumpers to alleviate the load on the spider web.

When Yamaha Canada called and started lying to me I was offended. Yet I was accused of being pissy. Hey. Newsflash: They have my e-mails. They have the board posts. They knew that I knew that they weren't going to do anything without a firm push from behind yet that told me that they had 'invited' the inspector from TC to be present at an inspection they wanted to perform of my bike (after having already inspected it the year before?). I KNEW, having been told by TC that the inspector was pushing Yamaha to get this resolved. It was in e-mails between my dealer and me that I was told by my dealer were forwarded to Yamaha. I was unhappy at the lady's arrogant and condescending attitude. I did not respond in kind. I just reported it and was rewarded by a couple of negative votes.

So with all respect sir, I am NOT an ass, but perhaps the person Gen-II owners should be thanking. Because if my bike hadn't shut down when I was merging on to the Trans-Canada Highway in Montreal when it failed the second time and if I didn't have the relationship with the defect investigator Transport Canada would not have elevated the issue to level-3 and there would likely not have been a director-level telecon with the NHTSA a few weeks ago which is what probably resulted in the assignment of Bob Young to investigate the problem.

And yes, Kudos to Ionbeam and bkrk12 for their work in preparing for and handling the meeting that they had with the NHTSA (note that Yamaha was not reported to have been present - still want to applaud Cypress for 'stepping up'?), but my 'vinegar' is what fueled the journey to that point. And my comment about 3 years related to the fact that no one in authority has been listening and no one else has been actively soliciting information or pressing the matter. Their meeting was a reaction, rather than having been proactive.

The good news is that there are enough members of this board who respect me for my knowledge, my persistence and my willingness to help without expectation of reward. The bad news is that it takes just a few to spoil the goodwill.

 
Well I agree with the post above about not doing anything if you took preventative steps and installed one of the harnesses available on this forum, which I have done. I feel confident that this is a permanent fix for the issue and will continue to peer at those little buggers once a year during my Spring clean up. I feel more than a little hesitant to allow the dealer to tear it all apart and put it back together properly (yes, even Roseville Yamaha has blundered on my bike forgetting to torque a few bolts.) Plus with all my little extras who is to say they don't jack some of those up trying to "fix" a problem I already fixed? No thank you.

I don't credit any of you yahoos for this potential recall (I will believe when I see it) - I know it was them thar aliens.

 
I'll try to get this right the first time out because I still am barred from editing my posts:

If that's what you think, then you are indeed misguided. I have it on EXCELLENT authority that what drove the NHTSA to consider the problem at all was Transport Canada. There was a high level teleconference a few weeks ago between the agencies.

Chalking up negative votes to my posts isn't going to change the fact that what those two did could well have been done three years ago - but it wasn't and that's because no one in the US bureaucracy was interested - and they weren't until TC upgraded the issue to a level-3 problem and then got the NHTSA involved.

Now I am not minimising that ionbeam and bkrk12 made a bang-up and organised presentation to whomever they did, but it would not have happened without intervention from the Canadians

Oh - and I've not ever attacked Yamaha directly except to decry their complete denial of the problem in every manner possible - and then only Yamaha Canada, who spent altogether too much energy trying to prove that the issue didn't exist, but that if it did, then it must be our Farkles (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

As to the change in part numbers; The 2008 harness is also different from the 2006 - and all Gen-IIs have spiders.
Dude. You're an ass.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make, but why are your panties in such a wad? No slight was meant toward you at any time.

???
Of course you don't. Because I was quoting Ignacio's post and included yours to keep it in context - but of course you only saw what you wanted to see. And naturally, as I predicted in the post, the requisite negative votes were clicked. Truly mature behaviour.

I started the campaign to deal with what became known as the 'spider' issue just over two years ago because, with my engineering background and career involvement with life-safety issues my sensibilities were offended by Yamaha's 'head in the sand' approach to what was clearly a design defect.

That campaign took the form of a thread to convince people who suffered the problem to file formal complaints with the NHTSA - I spent time getting those who suffered the issue to file reports and exhorting members here to respond to the poll in order to try and determine what the underlying causal element might be. I also corresponded with various people about possible solutions and such and that thread is now some 28 pages long and has had more than 31,000 views (if you can believe what the board reports), more than any of the FJRF threads except the ignition failure one.

It has served as the information central for the problem and contains RZ350's load reports, key photos and a lot more.

Until my own machine was impacted I never contacted Yamaha Corporate in either country and said nothing negative about them here beyond the fact that I was totally amazed that they could ignore a problem that has affected something on the order of 15% of the rolling fleet and was a serious life safety issue. And even then, my posts took the form of factual reports and observations only.

Having spent 25 years in mission critical communications I am very familiar with the concept of how a failure can cost a life - I also appreciate that there are corporate liabilities, but there are also corporate responsibilities. When riders reported Yamaha's complete denial of the issue, yet gave detailed instructions to dealers and replaced wiring harnesses on out of warranty machines at the same time, I may have commented on the board, but beyond strongly soliciting a US-based champion step up for the cause (because the NHTSA would not listen to a Canadian riding a Canadian machine) I have had NO interaction with Yamaha or the authorities in the US on this matter.

And who stepped up to push the issue? Did you? Did anyone? NO ONE DID.

More amazing to me was the fact that the NHTSA actively declined to investigate the problem even though there were 23 filed complaints on their web site out of a population of likely fewer than 10,000 machines in total.

But that was the extent of my involvement until MY bike was bitten and I contacted Transport Canada in May of 2010.

I immediately started an exchange with the lead defect investigator and we are now friends.

My comment to the original thread was really no different than that which I predicted (and was told would likely never come to pass by those who supposedly know better: That there would never be a recall) . . . I wrote (and fulfilled my statement) that if they DID announce a recall I would NOT applaud them, because they did NOT step up, but rather were forced through the efforts of others to make good on a serious shortcoming (which it now seems has permeated other machines they make) - so I said I would write that it was about time. I did that and I meant it.

Cypress had to know about the issue because it was that far back that were were told that a certain dealer in Atlanta was seeing quite a few of the Gen-II machines come though with spider bites. Clearly his could not have been the only one. Yamaha HAD to have been notified since many of the machines were under warranty. We also knew that they were telling customers that theirs was 'the first' and that they had 'never heard of the problem', yet their dealers were being told exactly where to look and what to fix - a conundrum that can only be explained by way of a form of duplicity. Why? Because many of the riders were speaking with Yamaha support techs, the same people that interact with dealers. Make all the excuses you like. The reality is that this has been reported here by others as recently as last week.

Now, I'm not quite sure just what kind of vinegar (as Ignacio has called it) I am supposed to have been using in my 'fight' with Yamaha . . . . . I am not having a fight with anyone. I am simply trying to prevent people from being killed. My own machine has been patched, since Yamaha's original 'it is fine' inspection of last year resulted in my almost being run down last month. There is nothing 'in it' for me to get Yamaha to fix the issue because MY bike will not melt down again since I soldered in my jumpers to alleviate the load on the spider web.

When Yamaha Canada called and started lying to me I was offended. Yet I was accused of being pissy. Hey. Newsflash: They have my e-mails. They have the board posts. They knew that I knew that they weren't going to do anything without a firm push from behind yet that told me that they had 'invited' the inspector from TC to be present at an inspection they wanted to perform of my bike (after having already inspected it the year before?). I KNEW, having been told by TC that the inspector was pushing Yamaha to get this resolved. It was in e-mails between my dealer and me that I was told by my dealer were forwarded to Yamaha. I was unhappy at the lady's arrogant and condescending attitude. I did not respond in kind. I just reported it and was rewarded by a couple of negative votes.

So with all respect sir, I am NOT an ass, but perhaps the person Gen-II owners should be thanking. Because if my bike hadn't shut down when I was merging on to the Trans-Canada Highway in Montreal when it failed the second time and if I didn't have the relationship with the defect investigator Transport Canada would not have elevated the issue to level-3 and there would likely not have been a director-level telecon with the NHTSA a few weeks ago which is what probably resulted in the assignment of Bob Young to investigate the problem.

And yes, Kudos to Ionbeam and bkrk12 for their work in preparing for and handling the meeting that they had with the NHTSA (note that Yamaha was not reported to have been present - still want to applaud Cypress for 'stepping up'?), but my 'vinegar' is what fueled the journey to that point. And my comment about 3 years related to the fact that no one in authority has been listening and no one else has been actively soliciting information or pressing the matter. Their meeting was a reaction, rather than having been proactive.

The good news is that there are enough members of this board who respect me for my knowledge, my persistence and my willingness to help without expectation of reward. The bad news is that it takes just a few to spoil the goodwill.
Can we get Cliff's notes for this?

Lucas

 
I've started a response about five times and am just going to cut it to this:

There is a lot of wrong and half-informed writing going on, so please just cut the accusations and speculating.

Recall specifics and investigation staffing priorities are NOT public information for numerous good reasons.

This one's done and nothing new can be said till issued by Yamaha or NHTSA.

Stick a fork in it and get back to friendship and riding.

 
There is a lot of wrong and half-informed writing going on, so please just cut the accusations and speculating.

This is quite true.

Recall specifics and investigation staffing priorities are NOT public information for numerous good reasons.

I'm respecting the request to not publicly post or discuss certain things.

Stick a fork in it and get back to friendship and riding.
Adding my fork to this thread.

 
Just my observation on the different harnesses of different years.... a look in the air cleaner area of a 2010 shows there are way less wires there, and it has been vastly simplified, perhaps taking out redundant circuits or accessory circuits that would never be used. My '07 by comparision is quite the jungle of wires in there. Of course all the functional circuits remain with their draws, and I doubt any of the spider circuits have changed from their teeny 20 (?) gauge wires that become overburdened. It will be interesting to see what the fix is.

Thanks to all those that contributed to the point where we are today.

 
There is a lot of wrong and half-informed writing going on, so please just cut the accusations and speculating.

This is quite true.

Recall specifics and investigation staffing priorities are NOT public information for numerous good reasons.

I'm respecting the request to not publicly post or discuss certain things.

Stick a fork in it and get back to friendship and riding.
Adding my fork to this thread.

Moi, aussi!

Dan

 
I personally don't sive a ghit how we get from point A to point B... As long as we arrive at point B is what matters. Anyone who burned personal time and calories assisting the cause and making a case is to be applauded, and thank you.

I would not look for a ticker tape parade in any indivual efforts anytime soon.

 
.. from their teeny 20 (?) gauge wires that become overburdened. ...
If the wire gauge was the problem, the wires would be heating up inside the loom where they are even less cooled than when exposed to the air near the connectors. The wire only burns when the spider contact gets hot and then only with conducted heat from the spider.Whether or not the insulation actually bursts into flames I don't know, but if it did it would increase the damage to the wire. BUT ONLY NEAR THE SPIDER.
Of course, once the wire is burnt, it will be thinner, its resistance will go up, it will start self heating. But only after the damage has been done.

 
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.. from their teeny 20 (?) gauge wires that become overburdened. ...
If the wire gauge was the problem, the wires would be heating up inside the loom where they are even less cooled than when exposed to the air near the connectors. The wire only burns when the spider contact gets hot and then only with conducted heat from the spider.Whether or not the insulation actually bursts into flames I don't know, but if it did it would increase the damage to the wire. BUT ONLY NEAR THE SPIDER.
Of course, once the wire is burnt, it will be thinner, its resistance will go up, it will start self heating. But only after the damage has been done.
As a supervisor that used to work for me would say in her sweetly accented voice, "You and I from the same page we are singing!"

 
This is a copy of what I posted in the almost 30 page spider bite thread.

The good news is that it appears that Yamaha is getting ready to recall 2006-2009 machines for the spider issue...One item of note that I find interesting is that as of last week Yamaha Canada was supposedly still looking to collect wiring harnesses for investigation - yet they have a fix in the US?
I don't know if it is coincidence or not but BkrK12 and I met with a representative from the NHTSA a few weeks ago and together we walked the agent through a FACTUAL tour of the problem. We had a fairly long meeting with him, pictures were taken, a live hands-on exploration took place, we had a short schematic reading and lead a tour of the spider wires. The agent said that when he submits his reports to Yamaha, Yamaha usually responds quickly. If the tech blurb is true, it doesn't talk about a fix but does serve notice for action to be taken soon and offers short term action to be taken by dealers; not a fix but a containment and control measure.

Until then, please suspend sale of any 2006~2009 FJR13A/AE motorcycles in your inventory.
Oh . . . and to echo what I posted in the 'official' thread; I hope their fix resolves the issues in the nacelle harness as well.
If this action from Yamaha is driven by the NHTSA agent then Yamaha knows about the ground harnesses in the nacelle too. We took the time to explore the differences between the 'dirty' ground scheme and the 'clean' reference voltage grounding. We were specific about ground connectors in the nacelle too. We left the agent with documentation on all grounding connectors in the FJR.
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to do that.

 
Good info here. Thanks to all. Will wait for official instructions on how to proceed. Have South Dakota in my sights early August; perhaps we will have some direction by then. If not I will ride on the winds of prayer as always.

 
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