Not a Good Week

[yamafitter]

I did some fairly major maintenance to my 06 AE over the winter months and had the rear of the bike completely apart overhauling the rear suspension. I also did a flush of the clutch hydraulics on the AE using my Mityvac. Last Thursday we finally got some decent temperatures and there had been some rain to wash some of the sand & salt off the roads so I thought I would take the FJR out for a ride.

That is when the problems started. The bike wouldn't shift at all. Finally after a while using the foot shifter which I almost never use I was able to get 1st gear. A ride around the block confirmed something was seriously wrong. I couldn't shift into 2nd and I couldn't get back into neutral either.

After exercising the paddle shifter up on the bars and the foot shifter I could finally get it working but it was very intermittent.

When working the foot shifter I get shift error code #22 which according to the manual is a signal that the voltage signal from the foot shifter switch is wrong (below .9V or above 4.1V). Last year I lost part of the selector button for the shift mode selection and I sprayed some contact cleaner and the paddle shifter is now working quite a bit better.

I had the foot shifter off the bike when I pulled the swingarm to clean and lube the bearings and it looks like I messed the switch up putting it back together. I'm going to pull the connector and put my Fluke meter on it and see what kind of readings I get from the switch contacts and go from there. I don't want to have to replace the switch because Yamaha wants over $300 for it.

Since the FJR was hurting I went back to getting my WR450F ready for the first enduro of the season up here. I pulled the drain plugs to change the oil after Moab and managed to strip one of the drain plugs. Fortunately it was the one that is easier to get at and I was able to just drill and tap up to the next size. Had it been the other drain plug it would have required me to pull the motor out of the frame to fix it properly. I thought I had dodged a bullet but after doing the oil change I warmed the bike up and then checked the oil level and had foam bubbling out of the dip stick hole when I pulled the dip stick. Draining the oil confirmed my worst fears that there was antifreeze in the oil.

Right now I am theorizing that the water pump seal has failed since the oil drained from the crankcase is pretty clean but the oil drained from the tranny side shows signs of antifreeze contamination. I have to pull the water pump & sidecover to confirm my theory but this is the most likely cause. Obviously the bike is going nowhere until I get to the root cause of the problem so there will be no dirt biking until at least next weekend by the time I order parts. I know my dealer will not have the water pump shaft, bearing & seals in stock.

Did I mention that while I was working on the WR yesterday it started snowing again and we were supposed to go a ride an enduro today. According to a good friend of mine (even though he rides a KTM) that lives close to the Ganaraska Forest there was enough snow that it stayed on the ground and was not melting away. This past week really sucked.

 

[steveoreno]

You are correct, you have had a very bad week. I hope it gets better, if it's any consolation the weather in Indiana has been sucking as well.

 

[JamesK]

Sorry to hear about your problems Yamafitter, but as they say you should always try to look at things from a glass is half full perspective. To give you an example, over the winter I too pulled the swing arm to replace a few bearings, also pulled the front to install the Allballs roller bearings, new fork oil, etc. I also took the downtime opportunity to really clean up the bike, repaint the side cases, etc. - she looked and ran perfect.

A couple of weeks ago when I had everything finished I couldn't wait to take her out for a maiden ride, so decided to do one of my favorite night rides, well believe it or not I ended up hitting a f#*&^king big-ass deer (killed that POS) but it took me down, badly shattered my left collar bone requiring a titanium plate, broke my right thumb and did a fair bit of damage to the FJR. I'm still not able to pull all the fairings off to see what other surprises are awaiting me under the damaged fairings, but it's obvious that since the bike landed hard on the front left upper corner the front stay is bent, the dash looking from the the riding position is noticeably angled to the left and somewhat pushed in.

So cheer up, things can always be worse.

 

[LAF]

Well all I can say is you guys did have a bad week.

Sorry for your troubles.

Me, been house sitting on 27 acres, hot tub, WoodFord Reserve a plenty, NY strip on the barbecue, and got laid last night.

So I am sorry for you guys.

Life is good though.

 

[Surly]

Hoping this get better Bill. Soon be Spring!

Best regards

Surly

Well all I can say is you guys did have a bad week.
Sorry for your troubles.

Me, been house sitting on 27 acres, hot tub, WoodFord Reserve a plenty, NY strip on the barbecue, and got laid last night.

So I am sorry for you guys.

Life is good though.

Show off!

Wish I could beat that.

Best regards

Surly

 

[RaYzerman19]

Bill, for chrissakes, I've told you many times Tim Horton's coffee does not do well as AE clutch fluid nor does it have stop leak properties in a WR. Don't worry about this stuff for now, just divert your attention to planning another Invasion of somewhere south of the border.

James, you're right, things can always be worse. Sorry to hear of your mishap, hope you heal up real soon and can get things back together. Keep smiling.

 

[LAF]

Sorry to hear about your problems Yamafitter, but as they say you should always try to look at things from a glass is half full perspective. To give you an example, over the winter I too pulled the swing arm to replace a few bearings, also pulled the front to install the Allballs roller bearings, new fork oil, etc. I also took the downtime opportunity to really clean up the bike, repaint the side cases, etc. - she looked and ran perfect.A couple of weeks ago when I had everything finished I couldn't wait to take her out for a maiden ride, so decided to do one of my favorite night rides, well believe it or not I ended up hitting a f#*&^king big-ass deer (killed that POS) but it took me down, badly shattered my left collar bone requiring a titanium plate, broke my right thumb and did a fair bit of damage to the FJR. I'm still not able to pull all the fairings off to see what other surprises are awaiting me under the damaged fairings, but it's obvious that since the bike landed hard on the front left upper corner the front stay is bent, the dash looking from the the riding position is noticeably angled to the left and somewhat pushed in.

So cheer up, things can always be worse.

So are you still in Japan as your location shows?

I was just curious on the deer population in Japan? I was never there and have no clue how varied the Geography is.

I was eight years old when I broke my left clavicle. I was in a figure eight sling for 8 weeks, something about eights there.

I do hope you recover and can find a way to get your bike squared away. You need to recover a bit before wrenching.

Since where I am house sitting is a mile .2 of stone road and there are deer, turkey, fox, and a bunch of trees you have to watch driving to the house.

Friday night pouring rain and in my car and see this huge deer on the right, I am looking at its knees and hooves out my windshield, praying it turns and does not jump. I guess I been living right as it turned. It was a beast too!

Good luck to you and like I say, chill a bit and mend as I "been there, done that, wore that tee-shirt"

 

[LAF]

I did some fairly major maintenance to my 06 AE over the winter months and had the rear of the bike completely apart overhauling the rear suspension. I also did a flush of the clutch hydraulics on the AE using my Mityvac. Last Thursday we finally got some decent temperatures and there had been some rain to wash some of the sand & salt off the roads so I thought I would take the FJR out for a ride. That is when the problems started. The bike wouldn't shift at all. Finally after a while using the foot shifter which I almost never use I was able to get 1st gear. A ride around the block confirmed something was seriously wrong. I couldn't shift into 2nd and I couldn't get back into neutral either.

After exercising the paddle shifter up on the bars and the foot shifter I could finally get it working but it was very intermittent.

When working the foot shifter I get shift error code #22 which according to the manual is a signal that the voltage signal from the foot shifter switch is wrong (below .9V or above 4.1V). Last year I lost part of the selector button for the shift mode selection and I sprayed some contact cleaner and the paddle shifter is now working quite a bit better.

I had the foot shifter off the bike when I pulled the swingarm to clean and lube the bearings and it looks like I messed the switch up putting it back together. I'm going to pull the connector and put my Fluke meter on it and see what kind of readings I get from the switch contacts and go from there. I don't want to have to replace the switch because Yamaha wants over $300 for it.

Since the FJR was hurting I went back to getting my WR450F ready for the first enduro of the season up here. I pulled the drain plugs to change the oil after Moab and managed to strip one of the drain plugs. Fortunately it was the one that is easier to get at and I was able to just drill and tap up to the next size. Had it been the other drain plug it would have required me to pull the motor out of the frame to fix it properly. I thought I had dodged a bullet but after doing the oil change I warmed the bike up and then checked the oil level and had foam bubbling out of the dip stick hole when I pulled the dip stick. Draining the oil confirmed my worst fears that there was antifreeze in the oil.

Right now I am theorizing that the water pump seal has failed since the oil drained from the crankcase is pretty clean but the oil drained from the tranny side shows signs of antifreeze contamination. I have to pull the water pump & sidecover to confirm my theory but this is the most likely cause. Obviously the bike is going nowhere until I get to the root cause of the problem so there will be no dirt biking until at least next weekend by the time I order parts. I know my dealer will not have the water pump shaft, bearing & seals in stock.

Did I mention that while I was working on the WR yesterday it started snowing again and we were supposed to go a ride an enduro today. According to a good friend of mine (even though he rides a KTM) that lives close to the Ganaraska Forest there was enough snow that it stayed on the ground and was not melting away. This past week really sucked.

All I can say is at "least" yours is all mechanical. On the half full side of the glass, at least you can trouble shoot and wrench yourself. I know time and of course money, but as we see below, that glass is definitely half empty.

Sorry for your woes but I am sure you will be riding pretty quickly again. Good luck with it all.

 

[Geezer]

Put down that wrench. Get a cold beverage out of your 'fridge and sit down in your easy chair.

There now, isn't that better.

 

[yamafitter]

Put down that wrench. Get a cold beverage out of your 'fridge and sit down in your easy chair.
There now, isn't that better.

It actually got better than that. My buddy invited me over to watch the NASCAR race, drink his beer and then the wife made us a steak dinner. I'll get the parts I need for the WR450 ordered first thing tomorrow after my morning coffee at Timmy's and then go back to troubleshooting the FJR YCCS system.

 

[Bungie]

Shitty. But we all get the universe pissing down our neck occassionally. But it only drowns you once.

You'll get it fixed up in no time. Just an inconvenient bump in the road.

.. and ya, this weekend was crappy. We got snow yesterday and about -10C. On the flip side, it was +4 today and I got the trail bike and the FJR out for the season. The 25km ride back to the apartment was fine on the FJR. Not so much on the trail bike.

 

[Bustanut joker]

Bill, for chrissakes, I've told you many times Tim Horton's coffee does not do well as AE clutch fluid nor does it have stop leak properties in a WR. Don't worry about this stuff for now, just divert your attention to planning another Invasion of somewhere south of the border.
James, you're right, things can always be worse. Sorry to hear of your mishap, hope you heal up real soon and can get things back together. Keep smiling.

Our secret invasion force is quite stealth.. Broke into Bills joint, busted his stuff and skulked away.

Unfortunately they forgot to toss a bookcase at his head.

 

[mcatrophy]

...After exercising the paddle shifter up on the bars and the foot shifter I could finally get it working but it was very intermittent.

When working the foot shifter I get shift error code #22 which according to the manual is a signal that the voltage signal from the foot shifter switch is wrong (below .9V or above 4.1V). Last year I lost part of the selector button for the shift mode selection and I sprayed some contact cleaner and the paddle shifter is now working quite a bit better.

I had the foot shifter off the bike when I pulled the swingarm to clean and lube the bearings and it looks like I messed the switch up putting it back together. I'm going to pull the connector and put my Fluke meter on it and see what kind of readings I get from the switch contacts and go from there.

...

I did a little test on mine. If the foot switch is held on (for change-up or change down), the hand switch won't work, and vice-versa, so it does sound very much like a connector problem or possibly a wiring fault (trapped wire shorting or cut).

I'd suggest reseating all the connectors that you had apart.

 

[yamafitter]

One thing does does seem strange is that I cannot find where what appears to be a ground spider connects to. This 4 pin connector is located behind the left side panel and is very close to the S1 spider. I have the Brodie Harness so S1 is connected to the harness. Here is a photo of the plug .....

If someone could check their bike (preferably an 06/07 AE) and tell me if this plug is connected to anything it would be greatly appreciated. 3 of the wires are black with what appears to me as a green stripe. The other wire appears to be solid black.

I had the foot switch off and I found the procedure for testing and adjusting it (page 5-71 & page 8-245) in the manual. The overall max resistance tested at ~5 kohms which is good. I have to make up an adaptor so that I can check the voltage as per procedure.

The other thing I need to locate on the bike is the YCCS control relay. The manual I have is for an 08 and says the relay should be somewhere near the ECU. I might need to replace the relay but until I locate it and get the proper part number I kind of in a bind because the micro fiche just list "relay" and there are different part numbers for different relays.

The YCC-S Control Relay as two blue/white stripe wires, one green and one yellow/green stripe wire going to it. The relay is #63 in the print below....

If someone knows where exactly this relay is located or has the part number please let me know.

Thanks.

 

[wheatonFJR]

Sorry Billy and Jimmy for your guys' troubles. That sucks.

...and I was feelin' bad last weekend cuz I forgot which end of the wrench to hold and didn't get my bike all back together.

Good news is that it's April and not October and that the northern hemisphere is about to rock and roll motorcycle season-wise.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Hey Bill...I just saw your post for getting water out of a dirt bike. Gonna use that to clear the fuel out of a certain DRZ. Fuel was coming out of the dammed air box last week. I think the float stuck.

I tapped it and hopefully cleared that up, but when I cranked it, fuel came out of the exhaust pipe and it hasn't wanted to start. Gonna pull that plug and dry that mamma jamma out. I think (hope) it's just flooded.

I was gonna put some compressed air in there, but turning it upside down sounds like a good idea too.

Pretty sure I'm gonna buy a Husqvarna TC449 tomorrow. They have a $2500 rebate. Can't beat that with a stick.

 

[canucklehead-biker]

Bill, I'll try to get a picture later today of the connector you're referring to... I'm riding up to Edmonton at the moment, so can't exactly pull things apart just yet.

Griff

 

[yamafitter]

Bill, I'll try to get a picture later today of the connector you're referring to... I'm riding up to Edmonton at the moment, so can't exactly pull things apart just yet.
Griff

Understood, I was hoping you would see this.

Thanks.

 

[canucklehead-biker]

**EDIT** I said S4 but meant to say S1...

To clarify... you're looking for the connector that is just south of the S4 S1, left side, top of the engine ?

Griff