FJRF009.2: "Intermittent Ground Wire Connection"

[Brodie]

<snip> Iam still riding it as I have no other car right now hopefully I do not get stranded.

I'm inclined to agree with bramfrank, it sounds like the load transferred to the other weak links in the sub harness up near the headlights. My suspicion would be the S7 spider nest located in the front left fairing lower, next to the glove box and left turn signal. It's an easy check, just take a phillips screw driver and remove the black plastic inner fairing panel next to the horn and have a look for the black cap on the small connector. Remove the cap to inspect the 6 tined shorting bar and surrounding sockets within the connector. The other one that would be suspect is the one that lives above the left headlight just behind the black vertical dash panel. Talk to your service manager at the dealer and have them look at these locations for heat damage.

I would not continue driving the bike with this fault, it will only get worse.

Brodie

In left lower fairing...

Above left headlight...

 

[road runner]

I would agree with the previous posts except for the spider #'s.

The one by the glove box is S6, the one by the left headlight is S7, by right headlight S8.

There have been a few that had the S6 fail, and only one that I know of had S7 fail. It does sound like one of them in the front harness failed.

 

[Brodie]

Art

I stand corrected, S6 by the glove box, S7 above the left headlight.

Thanks for keeping me honest ;-)

Brodie

 

[Harald]

Took my Ca 2006 in to the dealer about 30 days ago to get the ground fix installed. Upon completion they told me the that the main wire harnes was fine and did not need to be replaced. I took it home and on the second day home failed to start blinking turn signal lights on dash and blue high beam light on. I tried to start a couple of times and fired up no problem. Took it back to the dealer they said wait until it happens again then tow it in there is nothing for it to go wrong, and to charge the battery. So I did and no issues for about 28 days. Then I go up to Tahoe Ebbits pass and all, and get there and won't start play with it then it starts and this time the the turn signal lights are on and solid and the blue high beam on solid and no headlight or horn or windshield motor. I was able to make it back in this condition 240 miles. Take it back to the dealer and this time he goes on the computer and finds out more from Mama Yama and he says that the original instructions were to only replace if the wire harnes was visably burned he said if conditions like mine occured now they will be replacing the entire harness and they are even going to replace the jumper wire fix again as he said it may be comprimised. I will tell you how it all turns out when it is completed. Iam still riding it as I have no other car right now hopefully I do not get stranded.

Depending on where your problem is, the main harness replacement won't fix the issue. The most common failure is in S4, which is part of the main harness. But if your failure is in S6 (under glovebox) or S7 or S8 (both above headlights), then they would need to replace the front sub harness.

Do us all a favor and find out from the dealer where exactly the fault was once they figure it out. Make sure to report the new failure at www.safercar.gov . And if the problem is determined to be any spider other the S4 (the one being address by the recall), please post in the tracking thread I started HERE .

 

[road runner]

Here is an old post by RZ350 documenting spider local and function. SPIDER CHART

Hope it helps.

I still owe him a beer.

 

[bramfrank]

Here is an old post by RZ350 documenting spider local and function. SPIDER CHART

Hope it helps.

I still owe him a beer.

You'll find that THIS post is the last published version of the spreadsheet.

 

[blackarrow]

Fast forward to now, you have a replacement harness on the bike because of a failed ground joint, aka spider. This new replacement harness is supposed to have a fix that will not require the recall harness. That means it is different than the original. Does it still have the 6 ground joint connectors with the shorting bar spiders and black caps? If so, are they in the same locations? I do not know what was changed, however I suspect it was something minor that has to do only with the ground joint that typically goes out - S4 under the fuel tank. Perhaps Yamaha added a wire that helps divert some of the load from upstream. After all , it's only the connector pins that fail - not the wire.

I would venture to guess that IF the new replacement wiring harness has the grounding joints in the same locations, try installing my Grounding Harness.

Brodie

I don't recall seeing this answered by anyone. It would be really nice to know. My dealer is quite insistent on getting the recall done. What I'd planned on doing was simply disconnecting and folding back Brodie's harness at the main spider in question and then re-installing it after the recall. Is this feasible? From the description of the recall fix I assumed the pins and connectors would be the same. Perhaps not?

 

[no1passesme]

Fast forward to now, you have a replacement harness on the bike because of a failed ground joint, aka spider. This new replacement harness is supposed to have a fix that will not require the recall harness. That means it is different than the original. Does it still have the 6 ground joint connectors with the shorting bar spiders and black caps? If so, are they in the same locations? I do not know what was changed, however I suspect it was something minor that has to do only with the ground joint that typically goes out - S4 under the fuel tank. Perhaps Yamaha added a wire that helps divert some of the load from upstream. After all , it's only the connector pins that fail - not the wire.

I would venture to guess that IF the new replacement wiring harness has the grounding joints in the same locations, try installing my Grounding Harness.

Brodie

I don't recall seeing this answered by anyone. It would be really nice to know. My dealer is quite insistent on getting the recall done. What I'd planned on doing was simply disconnecting and folding back Brodie's harness at the main spider in question and then re-installing it after the recall. Is this feasible? From the description of the recall fix I assumed the pins and connectors would be the same. Perhaps not?

I'm with you on getting an answer to this. I brought my 09 in to Zac at Roseville Yamaha for the 20K service and a new front PR2. I discussed the recall with him beforehand and told him I had the Brodie harness in place and that they could just disconnect it and put the fix on. I mentioned this over the phone AND when I dropped it off and he said sure, no problem. I told him I'd probably just disconnect the new part at the spider and reconnect the Brodie harness once they were done, but I wanted the recall cleared on my VIN.

So, I go to pick it up at the end of the day, Zac had gone for the day, and they tell me all is done, except the recall. "You have some non OEM part installed, so the tech didn't install the recall" I was told. Well, my bike won't be back there until I need a new tire or the 24K service, so hopefully we'll have an answer to this by then. If it's only the one spider that's confusing them, I'll do as suggested above and reinstall the original spider before they do the work, tucking the Brodie connector out of the way.

 

[beacher]

Stay tuned, guys; we should have an answer to this after the TechDay in Auburn, 10/1!

 

[beacher]

Hey Brodie, your harness now resides on the new harness! Yesterday, with the help of 6 or 7 "old hands" at the "tech day" in Auburn, the harness was installed, and looks like it went in just like it would have on the old harness. No one commented on noticing anything different on the new harness, so I'mREALLY happy that it now resides on the bike! So, for the rest of you guys, if you haven't gotten Brodie's harness, GO DO IT, & GET IT INSTALLED! It may save you some problems down the road a ways.

 

[twistedcricket]

I had the recall completed today. I've had the Brodie Harness on since April. There are several reasons why I prefer the dealership an hour away from where I live. They have a common sense that eludes most dealerships in larger towns or cities.

Dylan called me over and asked about the Brodie Harness and satisfied with my answer he set about completing the recall. I had lifted the tank and unplugged the harness and replaced the bus bar and cover yesterday. He's worked on my bike once before and has never balked at what I've plugged in. While they haven't done the recall before, I got to watch Dylan, staying out of his way, and noticed he didn't rush and followed the printed directions from Yamaha. It was pretty clear that the directions were written clearly and included images for reference. I wasn't expecting the harness install to be as involved as it proved to be; the side cowel has to be removed to plug into an existing ground harness on the battery side.

Yamaha only allows .8 hrs for this recall. Dylan completed it in 1.6. The shop manager (who was adding a turbo to a snowmobile) wasn't pushing Dylan to work faster or overly concerned with how long it took.

Sadly, I wasn't there when I said I would be so Dylan's girlfriend was a little upset that he wasn't ready at noon to take her to lunch. He wrapped up the last screws on my bike as 12:30. I left $20 on Dylan's bench and thanked him for his diligent work.

The other sweet thing about that dealership is that they moved a few bikes out of the way in case I really wanted to take one of the 2012 Goldwings out for a ride. I declined. I did sit on one of those buick-sized bikes though. Kinda neat but too much for me.

Where do I go? Nishna Valley Cycle in Atlantic, IA.

 

[FJRScrewball]

Just found and fixed a spider problem on my 2010. One of the two spiders that run along the left side frame wire harness had fallen against the #1 cylinder and melted a large hole in the black plastic cover. It seems to me like these two spiders should have been tie strapped to the left main harness to prevent this but mine were not. The damage to the spider was minimal and I was able to clean it up and secure both of them. If you have a GenII and haven't checked your spiders yet take a look at these two and make sure to secure them so this won't happen to you. All other spiders looked good.

Didn't really want to start a new topic on spiders but it looked to me like all the threads on spiders had been locked and felt I needed to pass this info along. Move this to where ever it needs to be.

Screwball

 

[bramfrank]

Just found and fixed a spider problem on my 2010. One of the two spiders that run along the left side frame wire harness had fallen against the #1 cylinder and melted a large hole in the black plastic cover. It seems to me like these two spiders should have been tie strapped to the left main harness to prevent this but mine were not. The damage to the spider was minimal and I was able to clean it up and secure both of them. If you have a GenII and haven't checked your spiders yet take a look at these two and make sure to secure them so this won't happen to you. All other spiders looked good.

Didn't really want to start a new topic on spiders but it looked to me like all the threads on spiders had been locked and felt I needed to pass this info along. Move this to where ever it needs to be.

Screwball

Make absolutely certain that you file a formal report with the NHTSA - the reason the '10s and '11s were not included in the recall was that there were no 'credible reports' of failures.

 

The problem persists.

 

[bramfrank]

Just sent the following to 'FJRScrewball' :

Your spider failed for the same reason everyone else's has . . . too much current through the connector once it started corroding.

Please make absolutely certain that you file a full and formal complaint with the NHTSA at https://www-odi.nhts...int/index.xhtml

You were lucky - your engine didn't cut out in the middle of a tricky high speed pass on a busy 2 lane highway - or your lights fail while riding a dark, twisty road late at night - the next person may not be so fortunate.

 

[HotRodZilla]

If Screwball is correct about his spider housing melting because it was contacting the cylinder head or whatever; how is that the 'same' as other earlier year spider failures?

If Screwball's assessment is correct, his spider was melted due to excessive outside heat...Not electrical current.

 

[bramfrank]

If Screwball is correct about his spider housing melting because it was contacting the cylinder head or whatever; how is that the 'same' as other earlier year spider failures?

If Screwball's assessment is correct, his spider was melted due to excessive outside heat...Not electrical current.

It was the cap that was melted, not any part of the connector itself (we exchanged PMs). The issue is a spider bite because:

1. The ground spider contacting any point on the chassis or engine does not cause electrical issues - even if the engine melted the cap - because the frame and engine are at ground potential, as is the spider and all of the connections to it.

2. The cap doesn't melt at engine temperatures.

3. His symptoms were engine cutting out, flashing fuel gauge, high beam on indicator and dead fuel pump (that he noticed). Those are spider bite symptoms.

And even if it wasn't a classic Spider bite, the machine is not supposed to burn itself up and stall out dfor any reason, even a missing tie wrap.

 

[FJRScrewball]

Bramfrank is not completely accurate on what I said in my message to him.

Here are the symptoms I noticed:

Engine started dying sometimes when coasting to a stop or when sitting at a traffic light. It would always restart. When troubleshooting it in the garage it finally died and would not restart. In diagnostics mode the sidestand switch and fuel pump were not working. When I turned the key on the fuel gauge bars would all light up and flash, then go out, then flash again. I didn't count how many times they flashed. I didn't notice anything else but there could have been other things.

I decided to remove the left side fairing, fuel tank and heat shield to look things over and found the top of the spiders black plastic cover resting against the engines #1 cylinder. It had a hole melted in the black plastic cover. It was obvious it started from the outside by the shape of the hole. I inspected the spider and inside of the connector and cleaned everything up. There was no corrosion but black soot was on the spider from it arcing to the engine. If the engine and the spider were the same electrical potential then why did it arc?

After cleaning up the spider and connector I did a continuity check from the spider to a bolt on the frame and it read 1 ohm. The bolt was not an engine mount bolt. It was a bolt that connects the main frame to the rear subframe.

The two spiders were not secured to the main harness that runs along the left frame and I tie strapped them to it to prevent this from happening again.

After looking at the list RZ350 made of the location and function of all the spiders I guess this was spider #2.

Hope this clarifies things for everyone.

Screwball

 

[HotRodZilla]

Ok...So now I'm just as confused. Was this a spider bite or something else? Also, why would the bare connector 'arc' to the block? Aren't the spider connections just ground wires? Are they hot??

 

[bramfrank]

Ok...So now I'm just as confused. Was this a spider bite or something else? Also, why would the bare connector 'arc' to the block? Aren't the spider connections just ground wires? Are they hot??

My point, exactly - and the engine, fuel gauge and fuel pump shouldn't cut out when they do.

 

[FJRScrewball]

Ok...So now I'm just as confused. Was this a spider bite or something else? Also, why would the bare connector 'arc' to the block? Aren't the spider connections just ground wires? Are they hot??

Not the spider bite as described in other threads. Those seemed to be related to corrosion. My case was different because there wasn't any corrosion. Thats why I thought it important to mention it. And so that those with 2010-2011's would not get a false sense of security. My point is, check your spider connections. You may find something like I did and be able to head off disaster.

They may be grounds but not all grounds have the same electrical potential. Next time I have things apart I'll take the spider cover off and touch it to the engine and see what happens. Then we'll know for sure. All I know for now is that when I removed it from touching the engine my problems went away.

Screwball