bike died

[dirtbikes987]

the other day I rode into work and along the way I feel like the bike started to shutter and out of the corner of my eye I think I saw all of the lights on the dash flash. I pulled the clutch in and revved the bike and everything seemed fine so I continued into work. When I was done at work, I went out to the parking lot, put the key into the ignition and turned the key to run. The lights on the dash flashed, the display came up and the fuel pump kicked on like it all should, and then everything just went dead. I turned the key on and off a couple of times and nothing. So, I removed everything from the frunk, removed the battery and checked all of the fuses and everything looked ok so I put it back together and it fired up perfectly and I went about my way home with no problems.

So, as I read some other posts on here I may have found my problem but wanted to run it by some others. Over the winter I installed some LED aux lights and heated gear that I wired in to a secondary fuse block that I have jumpered off of the key switch. I initially had everything run right to the battery but didn't want to accidentally leave the lights or drain the battery so I changed it to be off of the ignition circuit instead. Right now I do NOT have a relay installed on that circuit. Is that my problem?

thanks

 

[silverhound]

Your problem really sounds like loose battery connections. You probably already fixed it when you removed and re-installed the battery. That said, ideally your auxiliary fuse box should be connected to the battery with a relay rather than powering all that stuff off an existing circuit but I don't think that's the cause of your problem although it could be cause of other problems in the future.

 

[Old Can Ride]

I agree 100% with silverhound, most times it is your battery connection. You have to really torque these little suckers. Remember to reset your clock.

 

[dirtbikes987]

the battery connections were tight so I'm not sure if that is it or not. When I got home I parked the bike and then later on had to move it down to my barn. The bike started right up, no problems and I got her into the barn. I turned it off and proceeded to turn it back on again and it did the same thing; dash lights, dash, fuel pump and then dead. I let it sit for a minute or so and tried it again and it fired right up.

I might check the red/maroon connector on the left side of the frunk that connects the ignition switch to the battery which is where I spliced my secondary fuse block too.

 

[Lou Wambsganss]

Batteries are weird things. I have seen a healthy battery with tight connections make no attempt to start a car. Dash lights worked fine, but would only click the starter relay. No engine turning. After removing and reinstalling the battery post connections, everything was fine. Situations like this are why I always use copper anti - seize on battery connections. To aid with conduction and keep corrosion out.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[silverhound]

Ok well assuming it's not the battery then it might be your ignition switch or starter switch that's beginning to complain since you have (as I understand it) more than the rated voltage/amps running through it with your current aux fuse box set-up. Both those components are sized/rated to accommodate a maximum load figured out by some Honda engineer types. There is not a lot of latitude usually in their capacity. My FJR had a recall on the ignition switch as it turned out the standard load would eventually melt the contacts and cause failure. If you ever took apart an ignition switch you would see there are just tiny little contacts in it to make the needed contact and while your LED lights may not tax it all that much, running heated gear through that circuit almost definitely will IMO.

I would disconnect the aux fuse box and see if your problem returns. Then I would connect it the proper way and use the connection off your ignition that you have already tapped into to only fire the relay.

 

[ste7ios]

Please, be as precise as possible. ECM/PCM is using all those indicators to inform us about a specific failure. So ALL of the indicators were blinking? And with the same timing?

 

[dirtbikes987]

yeah, from what I recall because I wasn't looking directly at the dash when it happened, all of the indicator lights came on and then went off all at the same time. Just like when you start the bike normally.

The weather is turning nicer around here so I shouldn't need my heated gear. So, I think I'll try to run the bike as is without the gear on and without my aux lights running which should simulate not having the secondary panel. Then I'll work on adding a relay into the circuit.

As I tear into redoing some of the wiring I guess I have to ask the question; is there a better way to add "main key switched on/off" accessories other than tapping into the red/blk wire coming out of the ignition switch?

 

[gboswellsac]

Probably not much help but I had same issue. Had to get tow to house. Thought it was my new admore brake light or the battery. The battery tested perfect, and a friend with much more electrical skill than me check all my work and nada. I had a bunch of separate fused connections on the positive terminal and a couple on the ground terminal. I had noticed the positive connector was easy to remove (probably my problem {it was loose}) so after testing the battery and the circuits I made sure all the connections were tight and viola everything worked and kept working. Just to be on the safe side I've ordered the easter beaver PC-8 separate fuse box so I can remove all the extra connections to the + terminal to three (bike , trickle charger connection, and the Eastern Beaver). I had that on both my DL650s and worked perfect and kept the terminals uncluttered, now if I can figure out a good safe accessible spot for the PC-8 connection box, I'll be happy. More to the point of this thread I think it was a loose terminal for mine but when the dash lights went crazy when the tow driver tried to give me a boost, it started but the dash lights kept blinking, I was like you oh s__t, what did I do wrong. Hopefully like mine maybe just a terminal connection.
Boz

 

[ste7ios]

I'll check it on the service manual but it seems like a bad connection to the battery.

Yeap, there is a better way to connect things: The option (6P) sub-harness. It provides switched & backup power, fused and relayed...

 

[silverhound]

yeah, from what I recall because I wasn't looking directly at the dash when it happened, all of the indicator lights came on and then went off all at the same time. Just like when you start the bike normally.

The weather is turning nicer around here so I shouldn't need my heated gear. So, I think I'll try to run the bike as is without the gear on and without my aux lights running which should simulate not having the secondary panel. Then I'll work on adding a relay into the circuit.

As I tear into redoing some of the wiring I guess I have to ask the question; is there a better way to add "main key switched on/off" accessories other than tapping into the red/blk wire coming out of the ignition switch?

If it were me (and I didn't already use the accessory harness & relay to power my gadgets) I would tap into either the left or right front running lights to trigger the relay. Taillight would be another option. All three are switched/constant only with the ignition on.

 

[bamamate]

As Silverhound said, front running lights would be a good place to tap the trigger for a relay. Another option is to get the fuse/relay from Honda for the AUX harness. The fuse/relay is a separate part from the AUX harness. Then you can tap into the bike side of the AUX harness which is located at the left rear of the frunk.. The bike side of the harness has unswitched power, switched power, and High beam trigger.

 

[gboswellsac]

the battery connections were tight so I'm not sure if that is it or not. When I got home I parked the bike and then later on had to move it down to my barn. The bike started right up, no problems and I got her into the barn. I turned it off and proceeded to turn it back on again and it did the same thing; dash lights, dash, fuel pump and then dead. I let it sit for a minute or so and tried it again and it fired right up.

I might check the red/maroon connector on the left side of the frunk that connects the ignition switch to the battery which is where I spliced my secondary fuse block too.

Well you are better than me.... thought the whole problem was the connection but to day same problem ... the bike did not charge the battery enough to keep from discharging, as coming home in slow traffic the dash started to blink, shut off aux lights and stayed off the brakes and turn signals to get home while dash blinking. I really do not think it is battery or charger, but how I wired in the ardmore brake light system. Something is discharging faster than can charge at 1500 - 2000 rpm. I'm going to disconnect everything in the back and start all over on the aux brake turn etc. as believe I must have screwed up so bad my friend even could not find it. Start on last changes and work back .... I should make sure from where I speak before offering advise ... sorry I did not do that before my previous post. Glad you figured yours out ....

 

[dirtbikes987]

Well, over the long holiday weekend I tore the bike apart and did two things:

1. removed heated gear from circuit and just direct wired to the battery
2. still kept my pig tail off of the keyed circuit for the aux lights (on a separate handlebar switch too) but wired in a relay instead for the circuit

I got that all done, fired the bike up to test the lights and everything seemed good.


This morning I went to ride into work, started the bike, everything seemed fine (aux lights off so should be really no extra load on overall circuit). I hopped on, flipped the kickstand up and the bike died. As in, nothing. I turned the key off, let the bike sit for a minute, turned the key back on and it fired up. I put it in gear and started to ride it and got about 20 feet down the driveway and the bike died again. So I obviously parked it after that.

I'm guessing there is a self resetting circuit breaker somewhere in the circuit. I downloaded a schematic and cant find it. 'm assuming I shorted something out somewhere with the old setup which is causing something to get hot and trip the breaker. Any thoughts.

 

[dirtbikes987]

So I took the left side fairing off the bike so that I could get to the ignition circuit. I was not prepared for Honda to use torx safety screws to hold the electronics to the bottom of the tumbler so I was not able to remove it. So instead I hot wired the bike by bypassing the ignition (scary how easy it was) and I took a nice little ride around the property with no issues. I'm going to go out on a limb at this point until I can tear the electronics off the ignition and say that I have a short in the ignition somewhere.

It's funny how I tried to be cheap and not spend $100 to get the aux hookup but now I'm probably going to spend $60+ on an ignition and probably $10 on the torx safety screwdriver. Funny how things work out.

 

[silverhound]

If you have a Harbor Freight near you or can wait a few days, they have a 33 PC security bit set for $5.99. Hopefully they're just a standard Torx screws and you may not even need it.

The good news is that it looks like part you may need (if you in fact fried the ignition circuit) is less than $50 since Honda had the foresight to keep the electrical bits separate from the lock-set.

 

[HONDABIKEPRO]

put a voltmeter on the battery, not running, key off what is the voltage?? now turn on key, what is the voltage??? now hit starter button what is the voltage drop??? what is the voltage now running? Dale

 

[dirtbikes987]

Dale, I'll check that when I get home

As for the ignition switch. I was searching the web last night for security torx bits and came across a posting somewhere where someone said that you can take a straight screwdriver and remove a security torx with it. So, I went out late last night and tried it. By using a small jewelers type screwdriver I was able to get it to fit into the T10 torx head and when I twisted I bent the little nipple part of the security bit. So, I went back and forth a couple of times and I eventually broke the nipple off which then allowed me to use a standard torx bit.

I was able to remove the electronics from the ignition and it is about as simple as a switch can get. I can post a pic later so everyone can see. It is fairly robust and it was clean as a whistle. So, it is not the ignition switch.

As I look at the schematic a little more I'm noticing that Honda broke the fuse block up into 2 section. The first section is for fuses 1-4 (optional 6 pin and ABS stuff) and then the second section is for fuses 5-10 (illum/stop/horn, fuel injection, eng stop, head light, clock/turn, and fan). All of the things that cut out on my bike.

I'm an ME not an EE so some of the wiring is greek to me so I'm trying to figure out what would trip and cut out all of those circuits and about 15-20 seconds later reset and be fine.

I'll perform the test you suggest Dale and I will post the results once home.

thanks

 

[L.B.S.]

I'm an ME not an EE so some of the wiring is greek to me so I'm trying to figure out what would trip and cut out all of those circuits and about 15-20 seconds later reset and be fine.

I'll be the very first to admit I am daft when it comes to electrics, and more than willing to learn about the NCX's inner workings, but colour me extremely surprised if there is anything resembling a circuit breaker or device that trips and resets itself as you describe, symptomatically, lurking in our bikes.

Since your stuff is randomly on/off, and you have mucked with the ignition wires by splicing into them (no offense meant, of course, lol) I would say it's most likely a matter of a loose connection, or a shorted wire/s that you worked on, that gets intermittent juice depending on movement, or over heated due to grounding out on something or other wires, causing the issues.

Potentially much more sucky, is if something has shorted out and fried the ECU to cause this odd stuff happening, but hopefully not. That would be very rare I guess, as I don't think I've ever heard of it happening, so...

 

[TheEdge900]

I'm an ME not an EE so some of the wiring is greek..
thanks

Sorry, off topic a little (ok, a lot), but I find it interesting how many engineers own this model of motorcycle. I guess the bike appeals to the engineering practicality. I'm an ME also.