| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
I think I figured out something interesting when repairing my 07 Uly. I think I broke a wire in that bundle because I crammed too much stuff in the wrong places under my flyscreen. The symptom was failure to start when the bars were at full right lock. Simple enough, dig into the service manual and find which color wire was associated with the starter button, take apart the flyscreen and headlight to get good access, and look for the break. It was a bit more difficult than it should have been, as the 07 schematic didn't (that I saw) say which wires were which in that right hand switch assembly, but there are only four of them on two switches (kill switch and starter button), so it was easy enough to ping them with a meter and see which were which. Then trace the two for the starter button, examining them really closely. Sure enough, right down by where the bundle was clamped to the neck, you could easily fold the wire. The insulation was fine, but the copper wire inside was broken. Fixed it with a splice, a couple solder joints, and some heat shrink tape. Easy enough. So putting it back together, I looked at how to keep it from happening again. First, there was a piece of hard cable armor under there (corrugated plastic stuff). I relocated that down a bit so it anchors into the plastic clamp that holds the wire bundle to the steering head. That gives a bigger radius on the flex point, so it should last longer. I picked up some additional cable armor as well, and armored up the rest of the stack. The original armor was this nice fiber electrical tape, but I don't have any of that. Cable ties and silicone rescue tape over that pinned it all in place. Were I to do it again, I might put on the cable ties to hold it tight, put on the silicone rescue tape, then cut off the cable ties (so they aren't snag points). Not a big deal either way though. So then, just as a test before I crammed my aftermarket horn and aftermarket HID ballast back in there, I did a lock to lock rotation to see how much travel that bundle actually wanted. To be honest, it was to keep the throttle cables from binding up, but what I saw surprised me. Wow. That wire bundle wants a LOT of space under the flyscreen. When I had originally stuffed my Fiam Freeway blaster horn in there, I pinned that wire bundle (and throttle cables) down. That meant I had effectively removed 3/4 of the overall "floating length" of that wire. Meaning a much shorter section of that bundle had to flex much further. No wonder it broke a wire. Chalk another one up to owner induced failures. The problem started after I did an endo into the side of a failing to yield Corolla, so that may have been a factor as well, but I'm sure with that much flex in that short a space it would have broken something sooner or later regardless. Some careful positioning and pinning of the various bits got my horn and ballast back in there without binding the cable bundle free play at all. So I'm good to go (if good to go means good to now go fix my rear rocker box leak  ). For what that's worth... | ||
| Prior |
I should look into this on my Uly as well. I had a harness replaced under warranty, and don't think that I cramped things up too much in there, but worth looking at. Thanks for the write up! | ||
| Reepicheep |
I should have shot video before buttoning it back up... Basically, that wire harness needs the middle 1/3 to 1/2 of the volume behind the flyscreen open in order to be able to use it's entire length to flex when you go from lock to lock. Me wedging a Fiam blaster horn *right* in the middle pinned that wire bundle at the top end, and ended up giving it less than half the length to "flex" naturally... meaning I likely exceeded Young's modulus. | ||
| Schwara |
Reep - so the next question is: assuming that you want the Fiam and 2 DDM HID slim ballasts, can you envision an arrangement that would allow everything without over constraining the bundle? This is possibly something else I might work on while the bike is down for clutch & fork repairs. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Yup! I am only running one HID, and it tucked nicely in the throttle side of the flyscreen pinned down with cable ties. You will have to wedge one more ballast in there, and you will have to work to make it all fit, but I bet it will work fine if you spend enough time playing tetris. The Fiam horn went on the far clutch side of the space, with the horn bolt facing towards the bike. The bolt of course won't bolt to anything there, so I drilled two holes all the way through the Fiam horn outlet, and used cable ties to hold it there facing straight down into the cross brace (which conveniently has a cut out at that spot anyway). So the horn outlet points straight down at a hole in the cross brace, it's bolt is facing in towards the bike, and the horn the far clutch side of the under flyscreen space. I said the cable needs the middle 1/2 of the space behind the flyscreen open to move freely, and it does. But the "rest of the story" is that it really only needs the rearward part of that space, not the frontward part. So the fact that the horn or the ballast stick in a little bit doesn't impact it so long as they are far forward. That reads pretty confusingly. I'll pop off my fly screen cover and grab a picture and some video as soon as I get a chance. | ||
| Schwara |
Pics would be great. Thanks a lot. I've got my other parts on order so maybe I'll try to knock out a fun project or two while I'm waiting to get to the ones keeping me off the road. | ||
| Schwara |
Is the Fiam install pretty plug and play or will I need to make some electrical modifications? I obviously haven't investigated it a great deal yet, but I'll search around a bit. I was going to order it on Amazon and if I need some other components I'll do it all at once to save shipping. Thanks again. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The Fiam Freeway Blaster is what I used, it was blister packed out on the shelves at the Lebanon Advance Auto. Nice and loud. I think it was exactly plug and play, aside from needing to relocate it a bit under the flyscreen. I don't think I even had to change the connectors (though if I did, I would have forgotten). | ||
| Schwara |
Good to know. I'll check local before bothering to order. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Here are some pictures to show what I mean (and where I stuffed all my stuff)... First, here is the path of that bundle at full left lock. You are looking for the blue cable armored bundle, which I circled (badly ).  Here is the path of that bundle at full right lock. It goes so far over I had to change the position of the camera to even be able to see it.  That is its "natural swing". Anything you obstruct in there will cause that bundle to flex across a much shorter radius, which is what I suspect is causing some (many?) of the "broken wire at the steering head bundle" problems people are having. I believe this is what caused mine. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The two sided tape is on the HID ballast at the points where I think it might touch just to minimize any rattle. | ||
| Schwara |
Great to know and thanks for the pics. Next time I have the flyscreen off I'm gonna pay a little closer attention and go both right and left to see how it is doing now ... then I'll try to shove all the new stuff in. I might add a little armor to the bundle while I'm in there as well. |
