Thought I would post this while troubleshooting. My left signal of my 2007 VFR800A will immediately blow the fuse when actuated. The right is fine. It is now a hard ground that started gradually on the ride home last night. Sounds like that chaffing that wore through. I wanted to engage the VFR community brain in the event this rings a bell with someone. Fortunately I've got a week off. Wish me luck. I'll post what I find. Reg
11/24/12 Traced ground on left side turn signal circuit to a wire that is part of a group passing unprotected through the front frame. The wires exit a wire run and join at a junction. This is all factory wiring. The wires were pulled tightly and taped of by the factory. Vibration and a lack of protection caused the ground. Wires pulled back through. Grounded wire and others in same run wrapped in tape, tubing and tie wrapped to vertical wire run. Not returned to original position through front of frame.
I had this same issue though I'm not sure it was the same cause, so I figured I'd post how I fixed it. I found that a wire was rubbing against the gauge support as well as some corrosion in a rectifier connector. The only way to get to this was to remove the headlight/upper cowl assembly. The wires were located directly behind the Stop Sensor and below all the relays. Where the wires were rubbed through. Here is the location in the Parts Fiche I sealed the wire with a liquid electrical tape then wrapped the whole thing with actual electrical tape. Then I cleaned the contacts on the rectifier and sealed it up with electrical tape. I didn't put the wire back where it was originally, since that would allow it to rub still. I taped it to a wire bundle headed to the relays. I think this never would have happened had Honda wrapped the wires and I'm not sure why they didn't do this.
I had an issue where the factory manual wanted me to remove the upper fairing to access the relays of my third gen. I ended up removing some inner fairing part and was able to shove my hand up in there. Funny thing was that I had the entire bike disassembled 6 years ago to paint it and dont have the foggiest idea of how I removed the upper fairing. Brain damage I guess.