6th Gen Electrical Bump in the Night

Okay, so for the last 2-3 weeks, I've been combing through all the resourses I can find trying to figure this out, with Very limited success.



The original problem presented like this. I hit a bump on the highway, the headlights went dim, power almost nonexistent, hit another bump, headlights back to bright as hell, and full power again. 3rd bump, back to dim headlights, and it stayed like that, within 3-5 minutes the dash was flickering and I was DRT. (Dead Right There).



So, I found the heat stressed 30 amp main fuse. Someone had actually added a 40 amp fuse in line there also. There was potentially a direct to ground short from one of those connectors touching the frame, so I sorta suspected that to be the problem. Got it towed back to the house, cleaned up some of the problem spots in that section of wiring and charged the battery overnight. Took it for a test ride the next day, no bueno. Ran good for a couple of minutes then completely dead within 10.



So, I replace the battery, ran good for 100 miles? hour and a half? something like that.... then went over a bump and heres the problem again. Except now it doesn't ever get right. Just stays down.



So I replace the stator. Figure I need to anyway, because I don't know how many miles it has on it etc. New stator, and battery, ran good for an hour or so, then, Hit a bump and killed me again.



What on earth is going on here?! any advise is appreciated.

 

Electrical gremlins are a pain!

What year is your VFR?

There was a wire havness recall on some of the early 6th gen VFRs. I think you can find out if yours is included and if it has been done by contacting your local Honda dealer with your VIN.

Have you done "the drill"? Mellodude posted it in the following thread, post #9 -
vfrworld.com/threads/how-to-fix-common-regulator-stator-failures.39277/
Without the bike running, you cannot complete it, but he lists a number of potential failure areas in the wiring to look for that may be of help.

By the way, welcome to VRRW!

 

Don't recommend running bike at all until you find exact problem and fix it. You're risking further damage not just to wiring, but to end-components like ECU, RR, dash, injectors, coils, switches, etc.

Unless you're Superman and can see electrons flowing inside wires, there's absolutely ZERO chance any human can just look at wiring and determine their ability to conduct electricity (or not). Luckily, we have instruments that can...



Now, this is 5-15min process to find exact problem with some basic measurements. These numbers will tell us to: do #1, #3, #9, or do #2 #11 #27, depending on what actual numbers are. Depending upon exact issue, may be 30-120 minutes to do proper permanent better-than-stock repair so it never happens again.

I. First, background on your problem:

This is sure sign of "wiring short", meaning you've got power-wire that is connected directly to ground unintentionally.



Normally, power goes through load, such as light-bulb or meter or injectors with resistance. This limits how much current flows inside that wire. Short-circuit has no load or resistance and can flow and infinite amount of current. Often melting wires and catching harness on fire. Fuse is installed to blow at certain amount of current-flow and protect wiring before it catches on fire. Some people, when confronted with blowing fuses, has no idea what functions of fuses are or what blowing one means. So they "solve" problem by just installing larger fuse, great, no more blowing fuses!

But, short-circuit is still there, it will continue to flow large amounts of current and melt insulation off wiring. Then when you hit bump, short gets worse and connects 2nd spot directly to frame and flows even more current. Electricity flows path of least resistance and pretty much all of available power from battery and charging system goes through short, leaving very little left to power bike and it dies.
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II. current status of your bike

So at this point, you've got at least 2 short-circuits. Original one which melted wiring insulation and 2nd bigger one that's draining all power. Second one is sporadic, which gets worse and better when you hit bumps to connect and disconnect short. All your issues of up/down lighting, dead battery and dying bike are just symptoms, victim or side-effects of real problem: short-circuit in wiring.
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III. How to fix your wiring

Finding real problem causing your symptoms of dying battery and dead bike.
Well, you can start with more familiar process of "looking" at wires and finding melted insulation and rubbing spots where it's touching:

a. start at battery, and go downstream. through main fuse, then 4-wire starter-solenoid connector. This transmits ALL power from battery & charging system to other circuits on bike: lights, ignition, etc.

b. Unravel harness and follow every wire from red & red/wht to their destinations. Looking for melted insulation and bare wire conductor within. Follow every single wire of every branch to end. Want to inspect every single section of wiring on bike from beginning to end.​

c. ... to be continued...

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Meanwhile, get multimeter and learn how to use it to measure voltage and resistance. Will let us fix this problem with least amount of effort and no wasted money shot-gunning huge pile of parts to replace perfectly-working parts with brand-new perfectly-working parts and nothing changes.

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-use-a-multimeter/all

1. measure battery power with everything OFF, volts=???
2. 24-hrs later, measure battery power with everything OFF, volts=???
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This will be starting point and those numbers will tell us what to do next. There is no magical cure we can give you like, "Do this and it'll fix all your problems!!!". Nope, not gonna put hair back on your head or chop 6" off belly either!

 

In addition, you will want to ensure good grounding..... there should be a chassis ground point on the frame, ground wires held on with a screw that may have come loose, or there is some oxidation...... you could have an intermittent ground causing you to think you have a short.

Not sure where this is on 6th gen, but Gen5 has a ground spider connector taped into the wire harness. This is a green or orange connector covered in tape to the main harness, so you'll have to look for it (somebody here may know). Open it up and check for corrosion/burned terminals in that connector (all the wires are green ground wires).