Anti-Zen Motorcycle Repair

Some of you may remember my motorcycle, perhaps from the "10,000 Mile Ride Around North America" posts.

The bike's a Honda Goldwing, and it did great on that trip, even though I took it places heavy touring bikes with street tires aren't supposed to go.

Like miles and miles of gravel:

Miles and miles of dirt:

And then more miles and miles of gravel:

Even stopping occasionally to sample said gravel. It was not delicious.


The bike did great, except for one breakdown that could be called "operator error:" I had an electrical failure on a deserted back road in Nebraska, 40-something miles (65km) from the nearest town. That part of the story is here, if you're interested: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310834&page=2

Eventually I figured out that the many hours of rattling over gravel had loosened one or more electrical connections. I was able to effect a roadside repair and resume my trip. I had the bike checked professionally at a Honda shop in Denver a few days later, and the service supervisor agreed: Just an electrical connection shaken loose by the unusual roads (for a touring bike) I was riding in. They re-tightened all the accessible connectors, ran tests on the alternator and battery, and pronounced the bike good to go. I went.

I finished the trip without incident. This was in 2007.

Last year (2008), during a group ride, a friend said he thought my headlights looked yellow instead of the normal bright white. But when we checked, all seemed fine. Hmmmm.

I rode the bike the rest of last year without incident. But this spring (2009), in starting the bike from its winter nap, the headlights were totally dead. All other electrical stuff worked fine, but both the high and low beams were totally out.

That's 4 bulbs total; two each on two separate circuits. No way all four bulbs would fail at once. The circuits are fused separately too, so the odds of both fuses blowing simultaneously were pretty low. It had to be something more fundamental. Sigh.

You can't legally ride a motorcycle around here without the headlights on at all times, and it's stupid to do so anyway: You're very vulnerable on a bike, and it's important to be conspicuous to car drivers who (what with cell phones, lattes, and other distractions) tend not to see motorcycles until they feel a bump and say "What was that?"

So, the lights had to be fixed before I could use the bike this year.

I'd heard of vibration-related electrical problems with one of the Goldwing's central electrical grounds ("earths" to our UK-oriented electricians). A number of ground wires come together in midbike, where they join in petal-like fashion to a large bolt that attaches to the frame. It's very hard to get at; it's one of the most inaccessible spots on the entire machine. Among other joys, you have to physically remove the gas tank from the bike.

I had put the bike away last Fall with a full tank of gas, so I really wasn't looking forward to the job of tearing the bike down and removing a brimming-full gas tank.

Another reason I wasn't looking forward to this job: I've (ahem) extensively modified the bike's electrical system, adding circuits for a satellite radio, a GPS, camera- and cell-phone charging circuits, 12v power taps, enhanced audio, heated clothing, an alarm, and more. I literally felt vaguely ill--- a pit-of-the-stomach feeling--- at the thought that perhaps my electrical work had seriously damaged an expensive motorcycle. Gah!

But the day finally came when I could put it off no longer. Part of it was the emergence of Spring here; almost all the snow is gone at the lower elevations, and the grass is finally starting to green.

And part of it is reaction to the winter-induced interior focus. Robot vacuums, breadmaking and such are fine, but I needed a task more suited to a garage than a kitchen. I needed to make a mess instead of cleaning one up. I needed less nurture and more nasty. I needed toxic chemicals and dirt-encrusted fingernails! What can I say: It's primal.

Unghhh. Tools good. Me like tools.

So, with the forecast calling for warm weather with a chance of widely-scattered motorcycle parts, I dug in: I stripped all the tupperware off the bike to expose the guts. It ain't pretty that way. (As usual, click to enlarge any photo.)


For those of you who haven't seen it before: A Goldwing isn't a putt-around-the-block bike. It's not one of those rolling sculpture chromium things meant mainly to be looked at in a parking lot. It's not a rolling noisemaker that screams "Look at me! I'm cool because I can make loud noises!" (I've never understood that--- any idiot can make a noisy engine. The skill comes in making an engine *quiet.*)

Anyway, a Honda Goldwing is built for long distance touring. It's comfortable, quiet and powerful with many fully up-to-date automotive-type technologies: a fuel-injected 6 cylinder engine, antilock brakes, and so on. Supposedly, a Goldwing has more separate parts than a baseline 4 cylinder Honda Civic. When I have to dig into the bike like this, I can believe the parts count:


Here's some of the wiring I modified on the left side of the bike, normally hidden beneath the plastic shell:


I tried to do good work on my electrical mods. I worked carefully, used good connectors, reinforced my work with zip-ties to keep all wires secure, and labeled everything as I went. I like to think my electrical work is like me: crude, but effective. :)


I have custom wiring tucked everywhere....


I dreaded the thought of having to undo everything.

But since I'd already had one vibration-induced electrical problem, I figured that checking the central ground--- known also to sometimes have vibration problems--- would be the best place to start. But that meant pulling the gas tank.

The tank is an odd shape that takes advantage of various openings in the frame: It balloons around parts and juts into crevasses, enclosing volume where it can. You have to lift and twist it at the same time to get it out of the frame. Part of the twisting motion hits the battery, so before moving the tank, I removed the battery and snipped all the zip ties that had kept the extra wiring there neat. I also opened the fuse tray. Things were getting messy.


I disconnected the fuel-level sensor, the electrical lead for the gas pump, the supply and return gas lines, and the vapor-control and spill hoses. The tank was now just about ready for removal.




Fred Harmon, a well-known Goldwing guru, suggested using scrap hose and bolts as temporary plugs for the hoses:


It mostly worked; I only lost a little gas due to the residual pressure in the fuel injection system.

Eventually, I switched to using a medical hemostat instead, which closed off the scrap hose completely. (I got the hemostat through a tool catalog; the inexpensive device was made in Pakistan, and the quality of its construction--- while fine for working on motorcycles and cars--- makes me want never to have surgery in Pakistan.)



I lifted the tank out. Ok, it really wasn't that simple, but I did get it out with much cursing and grunting and silicone spray on the friction points. There is nothing Zen-like about the art of my motorcycle maintenance.

There, beneath where the tank had been, was my quarry: The central ground, covered with 50,000 miles of grunge:

That ground is mostly for small-amperage control wiring; it's not for the bike's heavy circuits themselves, but for the low-amp circuits that in turn switch the heavy circuits.

Nothing was obviously loose. I unscrewed the bolt and lifted it off its seat.


There was light corrosion, but it seemed to be superficial:


So maybe it was my add-on wiring that caused the problem, after all. Grrrr.

Still, I was in there, so I figured I'd clean up the connections anyway. I opened the multiple eyelets and cleaned them all with solvent. I recrimped the wires. I reassembled the whole thing using threadlocker to prevent the bolt from working loose, and using WD-40 on all the electrical contact surfaces to keep them from re-corroding. I then coated the assembled connectors with a bit of dielectric grease to seal out everything.

As a last step, I added a new wire to the group; one that would run straight back to the negative terminal on the battery: a new, just-in-case, secondary low-amp path to ground.


While I was in there, I also inspected the frame welds. The Goldwing 1800 was the heaviest production bike ever to use a welded aluminum frame, and some of the early model years eventually suffered cracks at the welds. My bike is a 2005, and the problem was supposed to be solved by then, but I thought it worth a look.

I checked 'em all; they were OK.


Next, just for the hell of it, I opened up the Goldwing's three banks of relays. Checking the electrical operation of the bike's 20 separate relays--- about 100 separate circuit paths--- was more than I wanted to do, but I could at least remove and replace the relays, ensuring that the sockets and plugs were clean and making good contact.


Also, although I'd done it before, I re-checked all the fuses both visually...


...and electrically:


They were all OK.

So, I hadn't really found much: no obvious problem. If the central ground had been a mass of rust or had clearly been loose, it'd be different. But it actually had looked OK.

I again had that pit-of-the-stomach feeling. Had I just spent a bunch of hours chasing down the wrong alley? Was my add-on wiring at fault? Was I going to have to undo all the mods I'd done? Man, that would takes weeks and weeks of part-time work. And had I torn apart the bike and made a colossal mess for nothing? I mean, click on this picture--- look at the state the bike was in. And maybe for nothing? Gah!


Ah, fack.

OK, moment of truth: I temporarily repowered the bike using jumper cables:


I turned the ignition to ON (without starting the engine) and walked around the front of the bike.

Fiat lux!


Well OK, Honda lux, but you get the idea. Low beams were back on, fully normal.

So were high beams:

It had worked! Maybe it was removing and replugging the relays--- I can't discount that it might have been that--- but that central ground is a known trouble spot for Goldwings, so I'll go with the theory that the problem had indeed been there. Any in any case, my electrical glitch was now fixed.

And, thank goodness, the problem definitely was NOT my other electrical mods, to the great relief of my thought-it-was-about-to-be-wounded pride. Man, those lit lights made me feel good.

Because I have the bike open, I'll do some additional work on it over the next week or so, as time permits. But I felt really good today in accomplishing a fairly nontrivial repair, and thought I'd share it with you.

Thanks for reading along!