1 Gremlins Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:57 am
Point-Seven-five
Life time member
Took my 1994 K75RT out this morning. Two previous 100 mile rides this spring were flawless. First thing, starting out the ABS fault lights started flashing. This was the second time in about two weeks it did this. Shut off the bike and checked the connector to the brain which was tight. Restarted the bike, and rode away, no flashing. Same thing happened last week on a previous ride. Reason for checking the connector was that both times I had been digging around in the stuff I keep in the tail cowl prior to going and I suspected I might have disturbed the connector.
Rode about 4 miles, and ABS fault starts flashing. Ride another mile or so and flashing stops. Another mile and the alternator light comes on and the tach needle drops. The bike is losing power but the tach is dropping faster than the engine rev's. After a second or two, everything returns to normal.
Ride a bit further and the taillight bulb warning light flashes for an instant. It flashes randomly an additional 7-8 times during the 10 minute ride home. When I got home I did a couple quick checks to see if the battery had a good charge. Not having a lot of time or a meter handy, I just did a couple of starts. With the engine hot, the starter had no trouble turning the motor over, and connecting my maintainer showed that it went immediately to float mode. I left the maintainer connected and left for work.
This evening when I got home I tried to do some checking and unearthed some new, possibly related problems.
Since it's too late to take it out for a test ride, I just tried starting again to see if the battery would spin a cold motor. Several cold starts in succession and no problem, then suddenly, on one of the starts the starter would only turn the engine part of a revolution, and then stop. Next try, everything starts normally.
OK, I am thinking the battery is good, so I test the tail lights to see if the BMU was trying to tell me a bulb was out. I turn on the ignition, touch the rear brake, and the instrument cluster goes dead with only a faint glow coming from the alternator idiot light. Turn off the ignition, turn on and try again, everything normal and brake light works.
I do this another 20-25 times and find that touching either the front or rear brake will randomly kill the power to the Instrument cluster. Additionally, (this only happened twice), just turning on the ignition switch caused the cluster to die.
The last time I got the cluster to die it was when I turned on the ignition switch. I wanted to see if there was power anywhere else so I touched the front brake to see if the brake light would come on.
Not only did the light come on, but the cluster came on as well.
I suspect the BMU, but have no idea of how it is wired or how it might be able to kill the bike's power. The fact that I seem to be dealing with several possibly related intermittent problems has me pretty confused right now. Have spent some time looking at the essentially useless wiring diagrams in the Clymer book and am now hoping that someone here might have seen a similar problem.
I have tried to make this as clear as possible given how random everything is behaving right now. I'm supposed to be riding out to Colorado in a week, and would hate to have to cancel the trip because of this.
Rode about 4 miles, and ABS fault starts flashing. Ride another mile or so and flashing stops. Another mile and the alternator light comes on and the tach needle drops. The bike is losing power but the tach is dropping faster than the engine rev's. After a second or two, everything returns to normal.
Ride a bit further and the taillight bulb warning light flashes for an instant. It flashes randomly an additional 7-8 times during the 10 minute ride home. When I got home I did a couple quick checks to see if the battery had a good charge. Not having a lot of time or a meter handy, I just did a couple of starts. With the engine hot, the starter had no trouble turning the motor over, and connecting my maintainer showed that it went immediately to float mode. I left the maintainer connected and left for work.
This evening when I got home I tried to do some checking and unearthed some new, possibly related problems.
Since it's too late to take it out for a test ride, I just tried starting again to see if the battery would spin a cold motor. Several cold starts in succession and no problem, then suddenly, on one of the starts the starter would only turn the engine part of a revolution, and then stop. Next try, everything starts normally.
OK, I am thinking the battery is good, so I test the tail lights to see if the BMU was trying to tell me a bulb was out. I turn on the ignition, touch the rear brake, and the instrument cluster goes dead with only a faint glow coming from the alternator idiot light. Turn off the ignition, turn on and try again, everything normal and brake light works.
I do this another 20-25 times and find that touching either the front or rear brake will randomly kill the power to the Instrument cluster. Additionally, (this only happened twice), just turning on the ignition switch caused the cluster to die.
The last time I got the cluster to die it was when I turned on the ignition switch. I wanted to see if there was power anywhere else so I touched the front brake to see if the brake light would come on.
Not only did the light come on, but the cluster came on as well.
I suspect the BMU, but have no idea of how it is wired or how it might be able to kill the bike's power. The fact that I seem to be dealing with several possibly related intermittent problems has me pretty confused right now. Have spent some time looking at the essentially useless wiring diagrams in the Clymer book and am now hoping that someone here might have seen a similar problem.
I have tried to make this as clear as possible given how random everything is behaving right now. I'm supposed to be riding out to Colorado in a week, and would hate to have to cancel the trip because of this.
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Present: 1991 K100RS "Moby Brick Too"
Past:
1994 K75RT "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS"
1988 K100RS SE "Special Ed"
1994 K75S "Cheetos"
1992 K100RS "Moby Brick" R.I.P.
1982 Honda FT500
1979 Honda XR185
1977 Honda XL125
1974 Honda XL125
1972 OSSA Pioneer 250
1968 Kawasaki 175