25 replies to this topic

[dcarver]

Found one really grody connector going to primary side of starter relay. Sand, don't ask me how, I don't ride the FJR at Pismo Beach, really was on top of and in the connector. It just looked really ugly. Then I saw the two 30 amp fuses (one in use, one a spare, evidently) and the in-circuit fuse plastic was busted up to smithereens. It came out as a metal blade, no plastic. But the metal was intact, so electrically speaking all was presumably good.

Cleaned starter relay primary connections and current carrying connections and fuse connection (new fuse, yes). Also cleaned battery terminals. Measured voltage drop across starter relay B+ side and ground, at start volts dropped to 10.2 vdc, from what I've read an acceptable value.

So, no worries. I carry tools to access the relay if neccessary and have a jumper at hand. New starter relay will be installed when it arrives, just because, as FjRay recently said, "I'm anal retentive"

[Fred W]

New starter relay will be installed when it arrives, just because, as FjRay recently said, "I'm anal retentive"

I wouldn't call that anal retentive. No, I'd just call that being smart about the situation.

Who wants to mess around on the side of the road in BFE frigging around with a flaky starter relay when they could be riding? Considering that relay's gone >150k miles, I don't think it owes you a dime.

[Panman]

Don, I had to replace my relay on my FJR. If you get much of a voltage drop from the power side to the switched side of the relay the relay is on the way out. I could jump start mine and it would start but wouldn't with just the battery.
One word of advice when I took my relay out and it took about ten days for the new one to get here (in the middle of August). I wasn't paying attention when it came out (now pay attention here) and when the new one came I put it in backwards as you can hang it on either side of the relay. Well the bike started right up all is well.........Not! I got a ABS warning light that caused me some grief, well a lot of grief as I'm not the smartest on the block. I rode the bike till October as I was losing riding season and it finally got figured out what I had done! Have a laugh but pay attention to what end is fused on the relay and what end is the dummy end!

[dcarver]

That's a good test to do, Panman, tx for the vdc drop test and orientation too.

[Harald]

Good choice to replace that starter relay. My starter relay failed intermittently with less than 60k on my 07 FJR. Sometimes the bike would start and other times I'd have to push the start button numerous times before the starter would spin. I was able to confirm failure by hooking up a volt meter across the main contacts of the starter relay and even though I had a click when pushing the start button, I still had 12 volt drop across the main contacts. Dealer replaced relay under YES and no problems since.

[dcarver]

Now if only the relay would arrive! No probs lately though...