Electrical Gremlins continue to piss me off

So for any that have followed my Electrical journey I apologize for the recap.

So in June of last year I bought my VFR from a coworker who had piled her bike up and decided that motorcycles were dangerous and her husband needed to sell his bike as well. I took it in to my LMS for a pre-purchase inspection as I had never owned or admittedly heard of a VFR. Dealer called said everything looked good. Paid them their fee rode the bike back over and a deal was struck.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I have found VFRW and VFRD both great websites with good info about our beloved bikes.. At this point I have completely fallen in love with the VFR. I'm reading post after post devouring as much info about our viffers as I can find. I come across post after post about the charging system woes and recalls. As a hmm I wonder I call the LMS that did the inspection and said here's my VIN number can you run it and see if there are any outstanding recalls on it. Service manager tippy taps on the keyboard and says yes in fact there are 3 outstanding but one is just a tech bulletin not a full blown recall. I take the bike and and they verify the VIN and order the parts I make an appointment to take the bike in for the recalls once they arrive.

Couple more weeks and the bike is still running well but I've had a couple of issues where the bike wouldn't start after some general running around. Figured the battery was toast as it was well over 6 years old from the POs maint records. Recall parts come in I drop the bike off and they say it should be ready midday the next day. Couple hours later they call and ask me to come back in. Get there and we go back into the shop where she sits on the stand minus all the plastics. Mechanic shows me where the Blue connector is completely fried and there are spots along the main harness where the insulation on wires is so brittle that just touching it causes huge chunks to powder and fall away exposing bare wire. I'm right a truly spun up at this point. Not only did they miss the recalls on the PPI my bike is now completely In-Op. They tell me that they will take some pictures and send them back to the Mothership and see if they will cover the whole bike harness under the recall since the damage appears to be a result of the Blue connector melting down. This mollifies me some what so I say that's fine but if the harness is that BBQ then the rest of the charging system is probably compromised and I want them to test the entire system once the bike is back together. They agree and long story short Honda does indeed replace the entire harness taillight to headlight. Stator tests out faulty though so they give me a OEM stator to (make it right) for missing the recalls on the PPI. They can't install it but it's mine if I'll do the labor. I'm actually feeling pretty good at this point. New stator new harness everything is right in the world.

I pick the bike up after 2 weeks in the shop and everything is right with the world again. ~300 miles later I'm running downtown to a meeting in rush hour traffic 5mph or less pretty much at an idle. Temp is stable between 223 (fan on) and 198 (fan off) finally get free of traffic pull up to a stop light and the bike just shuts itself off. No power on restart attempt. I'm thinking WTH luckily I'm across the street from a tire place they come out and jump start the bike and I tear ass for home with all but one headlight unplugged. Get it home and throw it on the tender. The next day I take the battery in and it load tests fine. Run the drill the brand new OEM stator is shorted to ground on all three phases. Call the LMS back up they order a warranty replacement stator. It shows up in a couple days go in to pick it up and not wanting to do this job again I ask for a multimeter and test cont. on the brand new one. It's shorted to ground on 1 phase and the other 2 are reading 20 and 25ohms respectively. I'm fed up pissed off and generally an unhappy camper. I talk them into ordering me in a Ricks stator with the OEM connector to match the Mosfet style R/R that I had purchased from RMStator.

Here's where I screwed up. Rather than cutting off the OEM style connector and going with a Metripak I opted to stick with stock. HUGE FUCKING mistake. Fast forward to today new Stator is in R/R is in. Installed a Voltmeter to monitor everything and the bike is running like a stripped ass ape everywhere I go. Run over to have lunch with the wife this afternoon. Then a couple more errands, at the last stop I shut the bike off and can smell something burning. Quit sniff around doesn't reveal and smoke or flames but its definitely coming off the Rt. side of the bike. Jump on and race it home hoping to beat the fire truck to the scene of the crash if it occurs.

I get home pull in the garage and the acrid smell is getting stronger. Toss it up on the Centerstand and start pulling the right panel. Get it off and what to my wondering and watering eyes should appear but THIS... Take this word of advice if you start smelling something burning check it immediately it's allot less of a PITA to pull the fairings and check than it is to pull the fairings and have to replace burnt up shit.





So here I sit gonna cut the connector out and solder the wires together hopefully there's enough that I don't have to splice any in.

 

:hss: That is SUCK and weird
You have done your homework and try everything to prevent it and it still come back and bit you in the
I feel for you bro, all I have for you is start all over and soldered all the wires direct to the stator with better gage.
If all fail sale the bike to your friend and get an 06 or newer

 

After reading all about the problems with this on this site, it was the first thing I did.
It seems that no matter what connector you use, it is the weak point.
I cut and soldered the connection and used heat shrink on individual wires, took around 10 minutes and have had no problem. Bike has 74000k's on it now.
There was enough slack on the cabling to allow this, and it was one less thing to worry about.

 

This was why the only VFR I was going to get is a 2006 or later model where the bugs got sprayed with Raid. If you really want to get rid of bugs get that jungle tested 24 hr version and spray in a circle-it Kills everything that moves including the person spraying it.:vfrshorty::crutch::scared:

 

That's crazy!

Here's hoping that once it is soldered you don't have any further problems.

 

Well she's buttoned back up... I used solder joints with adhesive backed heatshrink, then taped them up with good ole #33 Black tape and used the OEM sleeve woven in between the wires as additional insulation. I'm gonna run it this way until either I smell shit burning again at which point I will trade this sumbich in on a VFR1200F or a ST1300. Or I'll up my comprehensive insurance and low side the POS off a cliff.

 

The 3-pin connector on mine was fried. Same story when I looked at my VF750. I've removed the connector on both Hondas and soldered and shrink-tubed both. Today, though I was looking at a friend's 15-year old Suzuki VS1400 (big V-twin) and darn if it doesn't use exactly the same connector as the VFR, and it's perfect. No scorch, shiny blades, looks like new. The R/R on the Zuk is huge, and it's in the breeze under the bike. Something to check into. On certain Suzuki forums for models which have iffy R/Rs, they say replace the Suzuki part with one from Honda. Honda forums recommend Yamaha regulators, and Yamaha forums like Suzuki. Nobody recommends Kawi. Weird.

 

That's cause the Kawis never burn up...haha. Those dam spade lug terminals are an evil abomination for an alternator connection.

 

When I hit 100,000 miles on my "kwaka" I will let you know if you can bbq with the fried kentuky wires :loco: :wacko: Get a R1 regulator and be done with this.

 

Man, that sucks. At least you know what you were doing and sorted it out.

So many people have reported a crispy 3P connector, but it's never been clear what the root cause is. It seems to be assumed it's due to the connector building up resistance over time, rather than a faulty stator or R/R.

 

Has anybody triied running the wires directly from stator to r/r? Or is it useful to put an inline fuse in each wire? I don't know nothing but surely there has to be a better way.

 

Yes, removed connector and hard wired stator to R/R, then installed 2 #10 single conductors from R/R back to battery (with inline 30 amp fuse)!

 

Did you disconnect any of the factory harness when you tan those other 2 wires to the battery and were they both positive or 1 pos and 1 ground?

 

Yes, see my post on: http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthre...where-is-the-red-white-wire-for-starter-relay

 

When the P.O.'s mechanic installed the Wolf exhaust and removed Honda's rear fender, he just glued the ECU and R/R to the plastic seat cowl. Not good for heat dissipation. So I took a piece of 1/8" aluminum plate and drilled mounting holes for the R/R and bolts to the frame, filed the mounting surface of the R/R flat, and bolted things together with some Arctic Silver heat sink paste. It dropped the temp of the R/R from 200 - 210°F to 130 - 140°, and it allows taking the rear plastics off the bike for service. They used to be glued to the wiring. The regulator should live a lot longer at lower temp. I also put a thin sheet of Al between the mufflers and the frame as a heat shield, so there is an air channel behind the electrics.
I made a similar heat spreader / heat sink for the VF750 which lowered the temperature even more, since Honda had that R/R bolted to the bottom of a plastic battery box behind the coolant tank with little air flow.
I kind of suspect the sequence of events goes something like: 3-pin connector runs warm where one of the wire crimps is slightly loose or oxidized. The heat causes further oxidation of the brass contacts. As resistance rises, eventually either contacts short together, or one contact burns completely open. That's where my VFR was when I bought it with 3900 miles on it. Once one contact is lost, all charging has to come from one phase winding of the stator, and it will get really hot. Likewise the 2 diodes in the rectifier for that phase are working really hard, and it's a race to see whether the R/R or the stator burns first. I was lucky and found the burnt connector before the other parts died. I was getting flashes from the FI light which hinted at electrical issues.
Next step is to install a voltmeter so I can keep an eye on the system, but (knock wood) I think I've found and addressed my gremlins.