Electrical Gremlin

[Jakobi]

The other day I noticed my 2010 EC250/300 kept resetting the trip meter and would read weird at times. Its got the trailtech vapour and in the past its usually indicated a flat battery. Replaced the battery prior to todays ride and no good. Its still playing up. Further to that a couple blokes who watched me climb up a hill towards them said my headlight keeps coming on and off. Confirmed with the mrs that she noticed it the other day when I was joy riding around the yard but thought it was normal Gotta love em!

Anyway. I have noticed the speedo sender cable is a bit worn on the outer cover and I have a new one here to replace. The magnet on the disk looks like its been chipped in the center which maybe might give the strange readings of the km/h going up and down irratically. I don't have a new one to test but will start looking to see if I can get one. Even then it doesn't make sense about the headlight. Considering both are running from power via the stator I guess the first point to check is the connection under the tank. How much output is expected from a 2k3, and do these bikes run a regulator at all?? From what I gather it feels like its undervolting as the revs fall and spiking up with throttle. I'll have to do a night ride to test the theory on the headlight though.

Any help will be most appreciated. Cheers in advance!

 

[kaos]

From the vapours I have owned and seen ,they all have some sort of glitch in a short amount of time.i was shocked they used them as an Oem component.

 

[Jakobi]

Yeah but that doesn't explain the lighting circuit. I think I'm going to pull her down and check the wiring today. Hopefully its an easy fix.

 

[gasmonkey]

The reg is bolted up with the coil.I've never heard of undervolting only over ,causing bulb blowing.It'll be a dodgy connection somewhere involving the steering head I reckon.

Joy riding in ya backyard in front of the mrs haha.Had you been drinkin?

 

[Jakobi]

Hahah! Only one glass of rose. Was taking the young fella for a quick spin and making sure the TTX shock was working. I agree its likely something in the head stem. Would a bad earth do it? Ignition/coil wise the bike is running like a champ.

 

[gasmonkey]

The earth for the front gear goes back in the loom to the chassis.Terminating at the coil mount I think.

 

[Jakobi]

There is an earth where the coolant expansion chamber is too. All earths cleaned up back to bare metal. Most connections cleaned. Especially the coil and the main power from the stator. Headlight disconnected and cleaned up. I think I found the culpret to at least the speedo giving inconsistant data and then flipping out. It could also maybe have some effect on the lighting I guess. Don't ask me how. I'll test later tonight and hopefully have the results.

So the problem was the 2 wires coming from the speedo sender connection were both damaged and possibly shorting against themselves and the bike fork leg/steering stem itself. Luckily for me I have a spare speedo sender in the box of goodies so it should be a clean plug and play resolution.

 

[Jakobi]

I need help

Well my wishful thinking only got me so far.

I replaced the speedo sender and fired it up. The lights were on but swinging the bars back and forwarth certainly made the lighting on the vapour and the headlight go on and off. I could isolate it to a certain point turning to the right where the light went off. Easy done. Somethings shorting behind the headlight. I pulled her down and checked every wire. I found the yellow wire from the front brake broken. I chased around for the other end of the yellow wire that was also broken. It came from the lighting knob connection. I tidied up some other wiring while at it and taped everything up. Rerouted the ignition switch from the RHS to the LHS rad hose. Fire it up again and NOTHING! No lights at all. Not even the little lights on the switch block for low/high beam. No power going into the vapour. I disconnect the yellow wire again, no good. Double checked the earths/grounds. Everything is as it was, but no power up front. The bike still starts and runs fine, the tail light still comes on when rear brake is engaged. I'm a bit stumped where to go to from here.

The wiring on this thing is horrible. The loom splits in so many places with spliced wires everywhere. There is about 3 main bundles of wire, but they all have wires than cross from one into another connection for both.

Any advice? I'm an electrical noob.

 

[Bryan]

Check you wiring system to make sure you don't have a loose ground somewhere. That will cause all sorts of weird things to happen. It will show as a badd battery, bad rectifier, or just about anything when it is just a loose wire.

On mine I had a switch for the light completely fall apart. I don't know if you have a switch that you can turn the light off or not like my '01, but went to check the switch and it fell apart.

Usually you have to follow the harness the whole way and inspect it. Do the easy stuff first before you get into the stator or electronics. You may have to use a multimeter and test for continuity while wiggling the wires to see if you have a broken wire.

 

[Todd5774]

I have the exact same problem on mine, think its a broken wire in the loom up by the headstock because if I wiggle the wires or turn the bars to full lock to the right the headlight comes on, doesn't bother me, and I haven't had the time to track it down......

And now the bikes in storage for a few yrs it will likely stay that way!

 

[wence]

Blown fuse now???
Maybe check the fuse Jake?
Also get a copy of the diagram if you haven't already.Try to follow it through.
Cheers Mark

 

[Jakobi]

I don't know if it has a fuse? I've never seen one. I had a look at the exploded view of the wiring loom and it doesn't really have enough info to help. I'm going to sack up and learn how to use the multimeter and do a few checks both for voltage (AC) and continuity. I'll check the grounds again for the 15th time.

 

[Jakobi]

Seems all the yellow wires are fine and supply the expected 12V. There is about 4 x yellows that come together and then get spliced. A yellow with green trim exits which then goes to the loom for the switch block. My logic tells me there should be 12V going to the block, through the block, and to the headlights. I am only reading about .1 to .5V on this wire. Guess the next step is to strip the shrink wrap back and inspect the splice.

Its possible that I may have damaged this when I was taping everything up again which would explain why it was good and then went bad.

 

[Jakobi]

So I'm stuck fast! I've pulled the rest of the loom out that I havent used in some time for the indicators. Followed everything else back and found some worn wiring at the rear end. There is a purple cable that runs right from the front of the bike (headlight connection using race connector / no switch) to the rear of the bike (tail light). I have repaired the damaged parts and checked for continuity and all is well there. I can only measure .2V on this although at one point I'm sure I was reading around 2V. I can't see where this cable sources its power from though. It just appears to run front to back.

There is also a yellow cable that links the main loom back to the front brake switch, and a yellow cable with the green stripe. As per last post was incorrect. No voltage on this at all. It runs from the main connector back to the cdi.

Everything else that is meant to have 12V does. The rear brake switch works but the tail light and headlights are getting no power at all.

 

[Jakobi]

Duh!



After much checking the wiring diagram and going over everything a few times I have 95% of the things fixed up. The broken yellow 12V power wire didn't actually break. It was 2 x wires which had pulled out of a large section which were all soldered together. No idea why they took 3 wires, cut them all, soldered them back together in one bunch again but meh. All fixed and all working as it should. The only thing thats not working is the power for the trailtech vapour. There is a wire that comes out thats 12V AC which then goes through a little plug which I assume flicks it to DC but all the readings I am getting are quite high. Well above 12V both on AC and DC mode with the multimeter. The backing light for the vapour doesn't stay on when the bike is started which I'm sure it used to do. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks
Jake

 

[GMP]

The EC harness on my '03 looked like it was made in freshmen shop class. Do you really need all that crap? If not, strip it and rewire to the minimum like our XCs. For wires that see high motion like the the headlight connection and wheel sensor, use robotics wire (more strands, more flexible). Also, route as much away from the coil and HV lead as possible.

 

[Jakobi]

Legally I need all that crap. Horn, blinkers, brake lights, high/low beams, speedo. etc etc. I run the bare minimum. Headlight, tail light and thats about it.

Everythings been cleaned up heaps more and I'm kicking myself for not doing it earlier. The loom was a mess. Thats my fear of electrics showing its face! Haha! It took me a whole day to nut it out and get it done, but I have a far better idea of how it all works now. Thread done!