| Author | Message | ||
     Slowride |
I have a 2010 X with 22k on the clock. Tonight I jump on the bike to leave the house and the bike starts acting like it's out of gas. I put some gas in it from the garage, but it acted the same. I went through the typical troubleshooting... (to include swapping the fuel pump fuse, stressing the ecm plugs looking for cracks and playing with the neutral safety switch.) I managed to get it running for a few seconds and then turned the handle bars.... Yep, that's it. Played with the wires in the neck area and I could get the uly to pop and skip or die. You would figure that the elves could have addressed that on the 10' bikes. Looks like I have my weekend planned out for me. | ||
| Panhead_dan |
Sounds like your battery needs charged. | ||
| Slowride |
Panhead, How would charging my battery affect if I can shuffle a wire up in the neck and get the bike to pop and or die? | ||
| Panhead_dan |
sorry, didn't catch that part. | ||
| Etennuly |
I am certain that they changed up the wiring harness after '07 to fix that problem. Could it be the ground wires at the steering neck?You are probably wiggling that at the same time with the harness. | ||
| Slowride |
I decided to tear into the Uly tonight to figure out what's going on. I took the headlight/beak section out and then took off the left side loom plastic protector. I then unscrewed the loom ground screw on the neck and cleaned it up with the wire brush on a dremel and I hit the neck with it as well. I added some dielectric grease to the connectors and ground point and buttoned it up. Tested the system by turning on the key and cycling the run switch, but it was a NO go. With the key on I grabbed the wiring loom and squeezed it and BAM, the yellow light came on at the dash and the fuel pump cycled. I broke into the wire loom and found a previous repaired wire. As I put my fingers on it, the wire separated out of the heat shrink with what looked like a broken solder joint. Well, there you go! I decided to stop for the evening and finish it off tomorrow evening. Before I did though, I ran through each of the wires at the point the other wire broke. I didn't feel anything limp or soft with the wires. Are there any specific wires(color) that I need to double check when I start back in on it tomorrow? | ||
| Arry |
"... found a previously repaired wire." If it's the red wire (or brown) it's probably a factory splice. Those splices have been the source of a lot of problems. | ||
| Hughlysses |
When you make your repair, others here have posted that crimped splices are preferred over soldered splices for motorcycle wiring. Apparently the rigid solder splice tends to make the wires on either side fatigue right at the joint, sometimes resulting in eventual breakage. A crimped splice allows for some movement but also provides support for the wires at the splice. FWIW | ||
| Tootal |
What I've found on my Harley's is you can solder a joint but when you cut your shrink wrap make it twice as long as you need it and then only shrink the middle of it around the joint. Leave the outside "unshruck". This acts like a shock absorber and keeps the wire from bending at the solders edge. If you shrink the whole wrap then the wire will bend at the edge of the wrap and break there. Using this method was the only way I could keep the wires going to the horn from breaking. | ||
| Etennuly |
To add to what  he said.....I use a double heat shrink in these instances. the smallest that will go over the soldered joint, then a larger size over it that is an inch longer. I have done this heat shrink flex joint method over crimpers to. It helps spread the load. | ||
| Slowride |
Thanks for the input! What I found is that the factory splices look good. The wire that broke at the solder was a gray, single wire that provides juice to the fuel pump and yellow engine light. After cutting the joint and stripping the wire back, I would either have to splice in another piece of wire to make up the gap or I would have to do the crimp pieces to make up the difference. I am good with the solder/double heat shrink method, but I would have to add the additional wire to make up the difference. Any input on this from the gallery? | ||
| Etennuly |
I would do a single joint several inches back towards the engine more, to get away from the flex area, using a new long length of wire that will replace the original all the way up into the fly screen area. That will get your extended or second splice where it does not have to move. | ||
| Slowride |
Good Call Vern! Thanks for the advice. | ||
| Tootal |
I would do a single joint several inches back towards the engine more, to get away from the flex area, using a new long length of wire that will replace the original all the way up into the fly screen area. That will get your extended or second splice where it does not have to move. To add to that, I removed the plastic wire guide and just used a couple of wire ties to loosely hold the wires on the neck. I did this early on and have never had any wiring issues on my 06. Ok, I lied, I did have to fix the ground wires on the neck but not any in the loom. | ||
| Slowride |
I ended up cutting the wire back, all the way in to the fly screen area. I then cut the other wire part of the broken wire back close to the air intake on the right, leaving just enough to work with. I then crimped the broken wire to a new spliced in wire and covered it in the two stage(diff size) heat shrink as suggested forward of the air intake and resting nicely in an unstressed location along the flat part of the neck/frame. The other side of the new spliced in wire I did the same way by crimping it to the old broken wire up in the fly screen area and covered in the two stage heat shrink. So, now that I have repaired the wire, the question is.... What would you use to wrap the wires with? I still have some of the fabric tape wrapping the wires in the fly screen area and webbed loom cover that I pulled down to the air intake. Do I wrap it in electrical tape or do I use some other type of tape? | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
heat shrink but it goes on before the repair | ||
| Etennuly |
I like to use a stretch fabric electrical tape first, that will hold the wires together well and has some thickness for impact cushioning. Then wrap that with regular plastic type electrical tape, that will shed water and slide easier if it rubs the frame and such. |
