Saturday morning, I'm running some quick errands to the post office and the bank. Turning into the post office, I pull into a parking spot and find neutral with my foot. Just as I go to let go of the clutch, I happened to look at my instrument panel - no illuminated green "N" indicator lamp. Damn - good thing I didn't let go of the clutch. (But man, it sure felt like I'd hit neutral!) I eased things down into first, then nudged back up into neutral...and still no green indicator lamp. Odd...I wonder if the light just blew out? Oh well, I'll worry about that later, too much to do this morning. I shut down and headed in to take care of the mail business.
Coming back out, I fired things up, shot a glance at the instruments - still no green light. Oh well, off to the bank. Pulling in, shutting down, I found neutral (still no green light) and killed the bike. Inside to take care of the money business and back out to the bike. Fired her up, rolled out and passed a cop on the side of the road. Ok, no worries, I'm not speeding, right? A quick glance to my speedometer....uh-oh...that's when it hit me that not only did I apparently not have my neutral indicator lamp, but I didn't have any insturmentation at all. Damn. Well, here's hoping it's just a blown fuse. I'll be home in a few and can check it out.
Back at the house, Zig arrived and we pulled out the manual, as well as accessed the fuse panel. Sure enough; a blown fuse. Sweet! That's an easy enough fix! We grabbed a spare fuse, popped it in, and hit the ignition. Bam. Blew the fuse. Crapola! Well, I don't have time to mess with this thing now, I'll have to give it a whirl tomorrow.
(Here's what a dead instrument panel looks like when you're flying down the road in the middle of a run. Granted, I was able to tell what time it was, but nothing else.)
And this brings us to "Tomorrow". I pulled out the service manual again, studied the wiring diagrams for a while, then set to opening the fairing up to see what I could find.
Nice - this doesn't look simple on any level...
I stood there for a second, hoping the bad wire would stand up and wave to me, saying "Hi Dave, here I am!", but the reclusive bastard opted to remain hidden, instead. Ok, well the first thing to try is to yank all the connections and put a new fuse in. Then start connecting things again and see which one blows the fuse. That'll tell me what line/harness to start investigating.
As I began to unplug things, I found myself slightly stymied by some of the bracing in the way. I contemplated pulling some bolts, and that's when I realized the brace (an anti-vibration brace) was broken.
Hmmmm, well that changes everthing! Because if the brace is broken, then that means things are bouncing and rubbing up against things they shouldn't be! And, in looking a little further, I found the same brace, on the other side, was also broken! Now we're getting somewhere!
So, placing a hand on the inner fairing and working it foward and backward, I looked for wires that were coming in contact with metal of any kind. Sure enough, I found one! Ha, I was excited as all hell as I reached in and lifted it up to my eyes...damn. Definitely has signs of wear, but it hadn't worn through. Ok, keep looking. Ok, nothing more on this side, lets try the other side. Bammo - there it is. Holding up the wire, I could see a glint of copper poking out and winking at me. (It's tough to make out in this pic, but it's just above the electrical tape.)
I wrapped it in electrical tape and positioned it in a way that it would be well away from any metal. Then, fingers crossed, I hit the ignition. Damn! Still dead! That means there's another...wait...what are the odds of there being two shorts happening at precisely the same time (ok, it's a possibility, but not one I wanted to entertain). And then it hit me; Hey Dumbass, you never replaced the last blown fuse! A quick visit to the spare fuse collection, and voila. Ok, try the ignition again. Success!! Whooo-Hoo!! Ok, let's start getting things back together.
It was during this process that I noticed the other braces (the horizontal ones, just under the speakers) were also broken...
Damn. Well, I'll replace the two small, horizontal ones, but I'm going to look into rigging something up to remedy the other, vertical ones (I'd thought about making a tab that I could bolt the two broken pieces together with, but Steve K. says he Mig'd his and it worked fine so I may take him up on his offer to Mig mine for me).
Once the fairing was all bolted back into place, I thought hey, maybe it'd be cool to run without a windshield...Nah, not so much. Besides, Snoopy doesn't look very comfortable sitting up there all alone with nothing guarding his back. Ok, windshield goes back on.
And there you have it; a successful "short" story. (And a word of caution to you guys out there with fairings - it might be worth it to open 'em up and check your braces.)
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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