Major electrical crash

Hi Guys
Yesterday I had to return home from a ride with my 2007 800 on a trailer. After owning many many vfr's and even racing them this is the first time in 30 years I have had the shame of breaking down. What made it worse is 100 plus harleys rode past while I was waiting for the recovery car.
It started wih the bike stalling three times then the dash gauges stopped working. Then 5 minutes later the bike stopped dead. I checked the fuses under the seat and the fuse in the white plastic fuse holder was blisteted and broke when I took it out. That is all I have done.
What do I do now ?? I have retired honda mechanic living next door who can help me if I can get some advice please

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Don't feel bad, they'll have two hundred breakdowns to your one!

If you have a retired mechanic that's pretty handy, but I think this is the info you need, post #9 "the drill" specifically.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthre...mmon-regulator-Stator-failures?highlight=Rubo

 

Thank you

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Hope ya get it sorted & back on the road soon!

 

First thing is you should clean up the wiring/fuse connection under the seat. I replaced mine with a 30 amp mega size fuse. The mini fuses just don't have enough surface area to handle the amps. Then check out the rest of the wiring on the bike, particularly the stator connections on the right side of the bike under the fairing.

 

And while you are talking to your neighbor tell him what we think of the crap way that Honda did this electrical shit, thousands of VFR owners have been left stranded on the side of the road just like you. And don't buy any of the bits you need from the Honda dealer, they will screw your arse off, remember in Australia the policy is screw the public as much as you can and then they wonder why we now get stuff off the internet

 

Certainly sounds like it wasn't charging before it stopped dead, so I would vote (in descending order) for the stator connector plug melting, or the regulator/rectifier dying, or the stator shorting out internally. Sadly none of these issues is rare on VFRs.

 

OK she lives again.
I replaced the fuse carrier and the small connector.
The battery was flat so charged to full.
It started and everything seems normal. FI light. Gauges. Power Commander.
All the connections I have checked so far are green.
I will go through cadbury64 checklist and check if its charging. Also I will take all connectors to task with contact cleaner.
Thanks everyone for your help and I am happy that all seems ok at present. I shall update you with what else I find

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It's a great shame honda did the electrics the way they did as the VFR is one of the world's greatest bikes.

 

Gary, the first thing I would do now is check the voltage across the battery terminals with the bike running, once the revs are up you should be in the mid to high 13's. If it's below 13.0, then the battery will not be getting charged and you will get stranded again.

 

Everything else checked out fine. So the only problem was the fuse carrier and fuse self destructing.
Back clocking kays

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Doesn't sound right, Gary. There has to be a reason the fuse carrier self destructed, i.e. an underlying problem. Did you check through everything, or was it a shop worker or your neighbor?

For me, knowing the history of the electrical gremlins on these bikes, I wouldn't have faith that my fuse just decided to melt one day.

I still think you're missing something...

 

Pliskin I think you're sort of right, but maybe the problem is just isolated to the fuse area? My thinking was that if the fuse blade or connector becomes dirty the contact area drops, and causes a higher resistance in that area, generating heat, and causing the fuse/holder to melt/breakdown but not actually blow the fuse element. So the root cause of failure would be dirty/corroded contacts. If that was the case it certainly suggests that going through the rest of the connectors on the bike with contact cleaner would be prudent.

 

Garry, cut the stinking connector from the stator to the rec/reg and solder and heatshrink the wires before it leaves you stranded again, and it will,just don't know where or when

 

Hi Pliskin
There was excessive green build up in the connections especially under the seat in and near the two 30amp fuses. I had a faulty R/R when the bike was new and when it was replaced they applied liberal amounts of electrical grease at
the connectors so they looked new. I checked for current leakage, which was excellent. I tested the the charging voltage with the revs at 5000rpm and high beam on and that was 14.5 volts. I also completed the alternator charging coil inspection.
Should I check more things??

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That sounds like what might have happened (hoping). The worst part of the melt down was at one of the fuse blades and were it connects to. This was welded together and the blade broke off when I tried to pull the fuse out.

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Certainly sounds like you've checked the right things, so you know your alternator is working, and the RR output is in the correct range. If those components are healthy, then the rest is only wiring and connectors, and it sounds like you've been through those and checked their appearance.

Normk's post regarding the alternator connector is a possible weak spot on the VFR, again due to corrosion followed by overheating and then melting/shorting which can take out the alternator and/or RR. It's pretty easy to visually check the condition of the connector, up to you whether you choose to cut it out and solder the wires (I haven't yet). The only extra that I'd consider is fitting a voltmeter to the bike so you can get some forewarning if the connections are going bad; my meter started dropping lately but cleaning up the connectors has (hopefully) sorted that.

 

+1 on what Cadbury says, I'm not sure if a voltmeter would save you from a connector melt down but it will sure give you a warning that something isn't happy

 

Good idea and the pictures tell me how to get it done. Cheers

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