Itsy Bitsy Spider?

[RossKean]

Riding home from Fred's impromptu NERDS RTE yesterday. Hot day and the bike had been idling in traffic and was pretty warm - fans were coming on periodically. I stopped at a store for 5 minutes and when I came out and turned on the ignition, I noticed that the high beam indicator was on and both turn signal light indicators were dimly lit. ****!! Windshield didn't work (didn't test other electricals like glove box and didn't actually see what the lights themselves were doing; just the indicators). Bike started and ran normally. Within a minute or so, all was back to normal. Windshield worked and light indicators worked as they should. No odd behavior for the hour and a half back to home.

This only happened once and it was while the bike was unusually hot. No point in pretending it won't happen again - even if they go away, grounding problems WILL reappear; almost certainly at the worst possible time. I don't want to deal with this in the next heavy rain or end out stuck on the side of the road in 100 °F heat in BFE.

S4 spider recall was done a few years ago
I had a spider issue a couple of years ago (S6, I think?) and fixed it by cutting it off and soldering the ends together

Based upon the reported symptoms, does anyone know where I should start? I guess the first thing is to make sure the recall S4 is OK and then check to make sure my less-than-expert solder joint has held together for 50,000 miles. The problem with an intermittent failure is that it can be very difficult to find. Visual inspection may not help - when I had the S6 problem, the connector didn't really look all that bad. A couple of the spiders legs were tarnished and a small burn mark on the back of the connector. Nothing like the horribly melted ones that have been posted here.

(I am working on the assumption that there's nothing else that could cause these symptoms)

 

[JamesK]

I'd go back and search for the full spider layout posted a few years back and DO ALL of them expect the S5 and S7 (from memory) as Ionbeam pointed out these two are for the ECU and neither need to be "fixed" or should be grounded to the frame.

I did all of mine, except the two ECU ones over 160,000 miles ago and have not needed to, nor will have to think about this particular problem again. I soldered each spider junction together and grounded each of these junctions separately to the frame, rather than have the entire load roam around the wiring harness and ground through S4.

I would fix this now, before you melt the harness.

 

[ionbeam]

Road map.

Along side the ECU S1
2 near the fuel rail connection LHS S2 S3
1 at the front under the tank, LHS near the radiator hose, the dreaded S4
1 at the front under the tank, RHS near the water temp sensor S5
1 under the LHS nose cone of the bike, below the glove box S6
1 behind the LHS headlight panel S7
1 behind the RHS headlight panel S8

The S3 and S5 have only low current sinking.

Tip 'o the hat to Queensland Ken.

 

[RossKean]

Already found and printed the Road Map! Unfortunately, since all of these are tied together, it seems that it will be difficult to sort it out based upon symptoms alone. It doesn't help that the "event" did not last long enough to fully investigate the extent of the problems. (i.e. headlights, fans, glovebox, horn, turnsignal function, tail lights etc.)

I will report back when (if) I find it. I am not going to do much riding between now and whenever I can get to it.

Thanks.

 

[SLK50]

Not that difficult to diagnose as problems are "upstream" of the affected

connector.

My money's on the one in the nose, under the glove box.

 

[RossKean]

Not that difficult to diagnose as problems are "upstream" of the affectedconnector.

My money's on the one in the nose, under the glove box.

That's the one I already "fixed". Maybe the soldered joint isn't as good as I thought when I did it. That one and S4 are the first places I will look.

 

[Brodie]

+1 on checking all of them. These connectors that Yamaha chose are the weak link in the system. Take the time to fix them once and for all.

Stay away from the S3 and S5. These are the ones with the black with blue stripe and black with white stripe leads to them. As been said, they are the connectors for the bike's low voltage electronics.

Good luck, let us know what you find.

Brodie

 

[vabrzn]

I had the exact same symptoms on my 2007. It wasn't a spider. A ground connection in a wire connector on the left front of the bike in front of the glove box overheated. I fixed it by bypassing the connector with a splice in the wiring. I'll try to post a pic later; screen locking when I try now. Note, you need to pull the connecotr aprt to see the damage.

 

[Brodie]

That sounds like the connector between the main harness and the sub harness up front. The same .09 Sumitomo series connector pins are used here too.

Good catch

Brodie

 

[Queensland Ken]

The same as my mates S6 spider fault, all except for the fans ????

Unless it's just a strange coincidence with the fans.

Wasn't there a member on this Forum, who had the S4 recall done, but when he checked after being bitten again, found that the mechanic didn't hook up the tail of the Yamaha's bridging wire.

 

[RossKean]

I think (not sure) that the fans were running when the lights were doing their stuff. In any case, the bike was hot and they should have been running.

Anyway, good suggestions. I hope to be able to get to it on the weekend, if not before then.

 

[vabrzn]

 

[RossKean]

That's not something that would be easy to catch. I don't really want to pull the nose off the bike but it might be the only way to check all of the connectors.

I will check to make sure the recall was done correctly.

Edit to add: I hope I find the "smoking gun". i.e. a well toasted connector. Otherwise, I might never know whether an intermittent problem was fixed. Much easier to do if the thing is in constant failure mode.

 

[vabrzn]

This connector can be accessed without removing the nose; remove the left side panel and the connector is in front of the glove box. This occurred about four months after the recall was done. I hope it's easy to find!

 

[RossKean]

I haven't had the nose off in 50,000 miles. There are some connectors under there that can't be reached without removing it. Besides, the windshield mechanism could use a clean and lube.

 

[Queensland Ken]

A+ in checking that the recall work was done right.

If you are going to check the bridging pieces grab some carbon grease.

 

[RossKean]

Thanks Ken - for the conductive grease suggestion and your spider drawing. Its going to be a few days before I can get to it. I just hope its not in a location where there is minimal wire available after cutting off the spider. Could be difficult to join all the ends and solder. Yamaha was not very generous with any excess wire lengths on this bike.

 

[Queensland Ken]

lol,lol.

Nope, not very generous at all.

I think the worse is that S8 behind the RHS headlight, a real bugger.

That grease is real good for the spider application.

Have to be real careful where there is more than one circuit in a connector block, could leak smoke.

 

[RaYzerman19]

Perhaps the high draw of the fans had something to do with it, but I'd go with the suggestion to look at them all and check the frame ground from battery negative.. You can get contact paste at Home Depot, maybe CanTire.......

Maybe not related, but the turn signal connectors are not waterproof and I've seen a few green corroded ones..... remove inner fairing panels to get at them, clean them and grease them.