Lost Power

[olsonm3915]

No. When the connectors mate, the contacts are pressed together with enough force to displace any grease. Sure, if you had two flat plates and coated them with dielectric grease and pressed them together, they might be insulated from each other, but properly designed contacts don't work that way. Any contact that was loose enough where adding dielectric grease caused a failure would already be so loose as to have high resistance and would burn out quickly.

 

[RadioHowie]

Any correlation between ignition switch recalls and failing grounding blocks?

Maybe new, beefed up ignition switch assemblies are moving the point of resistance and failure to the grounding buss?

It would be interesting to have someone come up with a matrix to discover if there IS a relationship with ignition switch failures/replacements.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that perhaps those Gen II owners that had ignition switch failures and replaced them with old-style switches which failed again, some 2 and 3 times, are now riding around with much more robust ignition switches, but the high current situation is now causing problems to appear elsewhere in the "chain", since the new switches can handle the higher current, where the grounding buss can't.

And has anyone reported the grounding buss failure who has a Brodie relay installed?

 

[v65]

I have one silly question...
So far the count is 3 of these shunts on the bike. Are we positive that all three are ground connections? Has anyone probed them with a meter?

:dntknw:

Brodie

FWIW I think there are two of these in the nose section of the bike, not easy to get to.

 

[radman]

No Gen I's yet, eh? Looked at a schematic I have here, it shows a similar grouping of grounds at a central point. Don't think we're outta the woods yet boyz, just hasn't been ID'd as a problem. Yet.

 

[Zorlac]

Any correlation between ignition switch recalls and failing grounding blocks?
Maybe new, beefed up ignition switch assemblies are moving the point of resistance and failure to the grounding buss?

It would be interesting to have someone come up with a matrix to discover if there IS a relationship with ignition switch failures/replacements.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that perhaps those Gen II owners that had ignition switch failures and replaced them with old-style switches which failed again, some 2 and 3 times, are now riding around with much more robust ignition switches, but the high current situation is now causing problems to appear elsewhere in the "chain", since the new switches can handle the higher current, where the grounding buss can't.

And has anyone reported the grounding buss failure who has a Brodie relay installed?

I doubt the new switches have been out long enough for those gnd blocks to get that well done.

 

[RadioHowie]

Any correlation between ignition switch recalls and failing grounding blocks?
Maybe new, beefed up ignition switch assemblies are moving the point of resistance and failure to the grounding buss?

It would be interesting to have someone come up with a matrix to discover if there IS a relationship with ignition switch failures/replacements.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that perhaps those Gen II owners that had ignition switch failures and replaced them with old-style switches which failed again, some 2 and 3 times, are now riding around with much more robust ignition switches, but the high current situation is now causing problems to appear elsewhere in the "chain", since the new switches can handle the higher current, where the grounding buss can't.

And has anyone reported the grounding buss failure who has a Brodie relay installed?

I doubt the new switches have been out long enough for those gnd blocks to get that well done.

Not just the new switches, but folks replacing bad ones with new "bad" ones. Until the solder on the old-style lets loose, the over-amp situation will find the weakest link in the chain. The grounding buss cooks and cooks, but before it completely fries, the ignition lets loose. Replace the switch, even with an old style, and the load gets forced back on the grounding buss, which cooks some more, then the ignition switch lets loose again. Put in a new-style ignition, with the MUCH heavier solder trace, and the load goes BACK to the grounding buss until IT lets go.

I'm just speculating here. The two BIG differences between a "Brodie'd" switch and the stocker is the relay is now handling the high current function AND the relay is grounded, while the original wiring is not.

 

[Fred W]

It doesn't really work that way, Howie. If the switch was going bad it would only present a higher than normal resistance to the load path, thereby reducing the current to anything downstream, in effect lessening any possibility of overloaded wires.

And the ground added in the Brodie fix is ONLY used to actuate the relay. It is not anything that the rest of the bike wiring would benefit from.

My professional opinion is the two problems are unrelated, except that they are both (probably) over current situations on the same bike and probably designed by the same engineers.

 

[Zorlac]

Maybe Gen II's just inherently suck?

 

[Fred W]

 

[RadioHowie]

Maybe Gen II's just inherently suck?

And Zippy hits ANOTHER homerun! :yahoo:

 

[turbodave_98]

[quote

And has anyone reported the grounding buss failure who has a Brodie relay installed?

I had 3 igintion switches changed on my 06 AE. the 3rd one was the new design and YES I had the Brodie harness installed and in about 1000 miles of the harness installation the ground failed.

iI run lots of farkles but monitior my voltage closely and never run less 13.2 volts with all equipment on.

 

[Brodie]

Gentlemen,

As promised I pulled my tank and had a look at my ground shunt located under the heat shield to the left and in front of the coolant pipe. To my relief it did not show any sign of overheating other than a slight yellowing like any other white connector would get in that spot above the engine. I did not have any symptoms of failure, or weird electrical quirks, but in light of recent developments with other FJRs I took the time to have a look.

Here is the little bugger...

With the cap pulled the bridge looks clean...

I pulled the bridge and the sockets look clean...

Here is the grounding bridge, again no sign of corrosion...

This is the dielectric grease available to me, I get it at my local Kragens/O'Rielly...

The nozzle is small enough I can inject grease into each socket...

The bridge is now greased up and back in place...

The cap is back on and tied down with a light weight Velcro strap...

Please note that my bike has had an Ignition Relay Harness installed since last may - about a year.

So far so good!
I learned long ago with my Ascot that wire connectors are the major weak link to any motorcycle. When I brought my AE home from the dealer it took a couple of weeks for me to grease every connector I could find. I missed this one, fortunately for me it behaved itself.

By the way, for those of you that bought my Ignition Relay Harness, I applied Dielectric grease to the 4 tabs on the relay and the bullet connector. If you haven't already done so, you may want to grease up the contacts in the white connectors.

Hope this helps someone.

Brodie

 

[BwanaDik]

Checked mine last night in preparation for SFO. All's well, pretty much looked like Brodie's

 

[Fred W]

We need to definitively determine what the 6 wires go to, in order to develop theories as to what is causing this connection to fail. Obviously, at least one of the 6 wires goes to a ground point on the frame or engine. But where do the other 5 wires go?

 

[olsonm3915]

We need to definitively determine what the 6 wires go to, in order to develop theories as to what is causing this connection to fail. Obviously, at least one of the 6 wires goes to a ground point on the frame or engine. But where do the other 5 wires go?

You might try removing the shorting bar and replacing it with jumpers, leaving one circuit at a time open and seeing what stops working. Crude but doing this with an eye on the schematic should narrow down which junction is which fairly quickly. That is assuming the schematic is drawn to reflect the presence of the junction in the first place which may or may not be the case.

 

[Fred W]

We need to definitively determine what the 6 wires go to, in order to develop theories as to what is causing this connection to fail. Obviously, at least one of the 6 wires goes to a ground point on the frame or engine. But where do the other 5 wires go?

You might try removing the shorting bar and replacing it with jumpers, leaving one circuit at a time open and seeing what stops working. Crude but doing this with an eye on the schematic should narrow down which junction is which fairly quickly. That is assuming the schematic is drawn to reflect the presence of the junction in the first place which may or may not be the case.

Yes, exactly. I'd think one of the bikes with the burned up connectors would be motivated to find this out.

 

[Khunajawdge]

Gentlemen,
As promised I pulled my tank and had a look at my ground shunt located under the heat shield to the left and in front of the coolant pipe.

Here is the grounding bridge, again no sign of corrosion...

Brodie

Seems like an opportune time to have that puppy gold plated. Gold does NOT corrode!

 

[Zorlac]

True, but gold plating doesn't negate the effect of more current down a wire than it can handle.

From my experience, that Molex connector's plastic body would have probably burst into flames for enough heat to be generated to melt the wire insulation as far back down the wires as the pictures show.

I'm still a little skeptical that all the heat is coming from a poor connection in the shorting block and then being conducted back down the wires melting their insulation.

 

[dcarver]

OK, got a question and test for those of you with known good under-tank ground connectors (Brodie?)

Please start the bike, listen to fuel pump.

Activate emergency blinkers.

Does the fuel pump audibly cycle high and low with each blink of the flashers?

Mine does. Big time. BIG time.

Went to dealer today, showed the tech the burned wires and ground points... This dealer did Airheads 2007..

Seems as if Yamaha only allows 2.5 hours to replace the entire harness.. not nearly enough time...

So some dealers may be hesitant to perform this work - stand your ground. [SIZE=8pt](no pun intended)[/SIZE]

Wondering what Un4gvn has to say - seems like a lot of work for 2.5 hours..

..and after all my probing, wire scraping and crap, CrZy8 died when I put the brakes on today.. sigh.

But I'm riding her 2morrow...

 

[Brodie]

Please start the bike, listen to fuel pump.
Activate emergency blinkers.

Does the fuel pump audibly cycle high and low with each blink of the flashers?

Mine does. Big time.
BIG time.

Don,

First test...

I went out and turned on the key to my bike. the fuel pump pressured up, then stopped as expected. I turned on the 4 way flashers then turned off the key with the 4 way flasher switch activated. When i turned on the key again (engine off), both the 4 way flashers and fuel pump activated. The pump did audibly cycle with the flashers.
Second test...

I broke out my mechanics stethoscope and probed the tank just above the front seat with the engine running. I could faintly make out the fuel pump sound. When I added the 4 way flashers, the pump just barely changed pitch with the cycling of the lights.
Parasitic Datel readings...

• Standing volts - engine off12.9
  
• Key on - pump on12.2
  
• Key on - pump off12.4
  
• Key on - pump on - 4 way on12.1 - low
  
  12.2 - high
  
• Key on - pump off - 4 way off12.2 - low
  
  12.3 - high
  
• Engine on - 4 way on13.2
  
• Engine on - 4 way off13.1 - low
  
  13.2 - high
  

This is with my Datel fuse linked directly to the battery positve terminal, and the ground wire attached directly to the negative terminal.

The original battery is 2 1/2 years old - approx 64k miles. The engine was cold and on fast idle.

Hope this helps.

Brodie