Ground problem, not a spider

[vabrzn]

On my way from a trip out West I had a trouble code indicator light come on and go after a few seconds. A few hundred miles after the warning light my high beam indicator and turn signal indicator came on for a few seconds. At a gas stop later in the day when I turned the key on the high beam indicator came on and no juice to the starter. After a few seconds the bike started and the high beam indicator went off after twenty seconds or so. The bike ran fine the remaining 800 miles to Virginia.

I pulled the trouble code and it indicated I had a problem with the O2 sensor. One of the causes the manual gives is an open circuit in front cowling harness. I immediately assumed the spider under the left headlight was toasted.

I removed the cowling and all of the spiders up there were fine. I cut off the spiders and added additional grounding anyway.

Since I didn’t fix anything I kept looking. I pulled the electrical connectors apart and found a problem with this one located under the storage box. The ground connector pin was overheating which resulted in a periodic short circuit. There was no sign of corrosion. I repaired it by bypassing the connecting and directly connecting the wires.

I’m not sure if I treated a symptom or fixed a problem.

It would be a good idea to pull all of these connectors apart that have ground wire and check for overheating.

2007 99,780 miles

 

[Fred W]

It is a spider in connector clothing.

Never trust those bastids.

(nice work on the troubleshooting)

 

[Queensland Ken]

A good find.

One item to look at my mates bike today.

He dropped it into my place last night en route to his home from work.

His bike shows the classic signs of the S6 I think, I'll do a bit of searching on the forum soon.

I have bookmarked most of the spyder topics, just a matter of finding them.

High bean indicator on, no headlights

Both blinkers on full time.

No horn

No windshield.

But the bike was able to start and run, so he made a bee line to my place.

Give us something to do today.

It's a nice feeling to have Brodie's harness on my bike.

 

[rbentnail]

It is a spider in connector clothing.
Never trust those bastids.

(nice work on the troubleshooting)

Yep! Spider bite alert! While yer in there you should check the other 7 ground spiders and, on the right hand side directly opposite of where you found your problem, there is another connector with a ground wire. Right above the right horn when you remove the plastics. And on the right side, down low, is the ground wire connection from the battery to the engine. I posted a couple crappy-but-functional pics in this thread, post # 103. Posts# 117 and 120 in the same thread will help you find the other 7 spiders.

 

[vabrzn]

I'll likely check for any other non spider grounds and bypass those as well. Has anyone looked at a schematic for the Generation Three? Any significant change in the wiring harness?

 

[Bungie]

Has anyone looked at a schematic for the Generation Three? Any significant change in the wiring harness?

I'd be really interested in this as well. No change = no Gen III for me. If I wanted a toaster I'd just go to Sears.

 

[LAF]

All I can say is when they cut off the recall and did not include my 10 I was a bit skeptical. All right I was down right pissed off! I can not even imagine that building a Gen III without addressing this is just plain stupid. I have posted pictures of my 0 mile 10's spiders that were not very pretty at all. I just do not get it? I mean how much cost would be associated with upping the wire gauge for the wiring in a production environment? Why not ground them out on the motor and be done with it?

I love my FJR and just do not understand the logic Yamaha is using in moving forward without thinking of a way to get this right?

At any rate we are learning to have external load pulling harnesses, rewiring spiders to one wire and grounding them ourselves, and dressing the spiders with our own flavor of corrosion fighters. Mine is ACF 50.

We can commiserate all we want but until they decide to do better we must do it ourselves. I do know if I suffer a roadside wait because of a spider it will never happen to me again on a Yamaha. And that is really a sin as I love the bike. But a big part of going, is getting back, and if you can not have faith in that then we have spent hard earned money on something that is not giving us our moneys worth.

 

[mcatrophy]

... I mean how much cost would be associated with upping the wire gauge for the wiring in a production environment? Why not ground them out on the motor and be done with it? ...

Problem isn't the wire gauge, it's the connector itself. The wire only gets hot because of heat conducted from the corroded connector.
But I fully agree that they shouldn't use that type of connector at all.

 

[LAF]

... I mean how much cost would be associated with upping the wire gauge for the wiring in a production environment? Why not ground them out on the motor and be done with it? ...

Problem isn't the wire gauge, it's the connector itself. The wire only gets hot because of heat conducted from the corroded connector.
But I fully agree that they shouldn't use that type of connector at all.

I do agree it is the connectors but wouldn't heavier gauge wire take some of the load off the connector? And as I said just ground the damn things to the motor. And why so many points of ground? At any rate I still love the FJR just not this spider issue that continues to plague them.

Maybe just get a piece of that boom box car wire that is like 3/8" and run a full loop to all spiders, snip the spider and solder them into it and then ground that?

 

[Intech]

... I mean how much cost would be associated with upping the wire gauge for the wiring in a production environment? Why not ground them out on the motor and be done with it? ...

Problem isn't the wire gauge, it's the connector itself. The wire only gets hot because of heat conducted from the corroded connector.
But I fully agree that they shouldn't use that type of connector at all.

I do agree it is the connectors but wouldn't heavier gauge wire take some of the load off the connector? And as I said just ground the damn things to the motor. And why so many points of ground? At any rate I still love the FJR just not this spider issue that continues to plague them.

Maybe just get a piece of that boom box car wire that is like 3/8" and run a full loop to all spiders, snip the spider and solder them into it and then ground that?

The size of the wire doesn't matter if the problem is in the connector.