My Spider Bite Story

[rbentnail]

EDIT: Post #39 on pg 2 has dropbox links where thread text and pictures can been seen/downloaded.

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Yep, I been bitten by the dreaded ground spider! Actually, 'dreaded' is such a strong word. More like PITA. Here's my story, remember I mentioned that I think my battery is beginning to die:

Tuesday as I'm leaving out for work I notice my right headlight low beam is burned out. So I stop on the way and get a 2-pack of the bulbs of [my] choice. Wednesday morn I commence to doing the deed. Thought it went really well as I was bleeding from only 3 small nicks

. So I start the bike and voila! headlights work again as designed. Cool! So I think, since I've already got the tools out and the oil & filter on hand and it's nearly time for an oil change and I got an [approx] 800 mile trip coming up, wth I'll change the oil. No biggie, oil & filter done. Start the bike to circulate the new. Not! WTF?!?

So I see 2 things right off: high beam head light indicator on; both turn signal indicators on. "Dammit!", I says, "I know what this means!" And I figure I know where the problem is, too and I didn't even need to dig out my X-ray spy glasses.

SO, for the benefit of science and future bite victims, I do a quick check of what I got and mostly what I ain't got:

- no engine start. No click, nothing;
- high beam headlight indicator on as mentioned, regardless of switch position;
- both turn signal indicators on as mentioned with no turn signals;
- fuel gauge reading completely full with about 3/4 tank in it and blinking once per second for 8 seconds, then pause for 1.5 seconds then repeat without end;
- clock did NOT reset;
- trip odometers did NOT reset;
- no windshield motion;
- no horn;
- no glovebox solenoid.

Solved the puzzle yet?

Yep! That's the one!! The S4 Ground Spider.

Lucky me! I just inspected these a few months ago and everything looked fine. C'est la vie, let's get to work. I pull plastics. S6 by the glove box fine. Both the S7 and S8 are fine- I looked at them whilst replacing headlight bulbs- but I check them again. Off comes the tank. S2 & S3 by the fuel rail left are fine. S5 by the cooling water temp sensor is fine. And thar she blows! S4, which I suspected from the very beginning is toast.

So I'll do the usual and snip it off and solder them together with an extra 14 ga. wire that'll run to ground. So here's my question for those who may have done this before me and can offer up a little advice: kinda tight in there, easier if I remove the nose plastics? Any other tidbits of advice?

I know about the recall that by choice I never had done. 2 different dealerships have screwed up so badly and broken enough stuff on my bike that I chose to take my chances with yearly inspection, cleaning and gooping. Made it almost 9 yrs! No complaints and better than having still more F'd up stuff on my bike.

ETA: Part of my point in posting all this that didn't really come through so well was the correlation between bad battery indications I linked to in a previous post and the possibility of something more involved.

 

[LKLD]

Glad you caught it now, and not on the road ( insert Vic)

Thanks for sharing!

 

[RossKean]

I wonder what would happen if you took it in to get the recall done (at a reputable service center)? They might end out replacing the entire wiring harness since it is damaged (as per the original recall instructions).

If not, then you have a clip and solder job to do and it is pretty tight in there - especially if you have to strip the wires back to get un-scorched copper. I think I would find out if they will do the harness replacement with the updated part. I did the solder job on S6 but the S4 is a bit tighter and Yamaha is not particularly generous with their wire.

 

[rbentnail]

I wonder what would happen if you took it in to get the recall done (at a reputable service center)? They might end out replacing the entire wiring harness since it is damaged (as per the original recall instructions).
If not, then you have a clip and solder job to do and it is pretty tight in there - especially if you have to strip the wires back to get un-scorched copper. I think I would find out if they will do the harness replacement with the updated part. I did the solder job on S6 but the S4 is a bit tighter and Yamaha is not particularly generous with their wire.

Yeah, I thought about calling about the recall but I am soooo leery about having more broken crap as I am not aware of any "reputable service centers" in this entire state. Plus, from what I've heard over the yrs I'd have to let it sit there waiting to be inspected, waiting for the dealership to contact Mammy Yammy, waiting for Mammy to approve it, waiting on the part to be delivered, waiting, waiting, waiting. All of a sudden I'm feeling Bill L's pain. And with the thoughts of "will it be done by Oct 20?" all of a sudden I feel ionbeam's pain....

No, I'll fix it myself now and then approach a dealership with burned part and pics in hand and attempt something that way.

 

[RossKean]

Perhaps you can get them to inspect, evaluate and determine whether a replacement harness is in the cards. If so, let them order and tell them you are going to do a temporary fix to keep you going until the parts arrive.

By the way, I agree that it is better to do the repair yourself rather than have a harness replacement done by a shop that isn't very good at this stuff.

 

[ionbeam]

Take a look at cutting along the harness wrapping tape and see if it will buy you some extra wire length to work with. When done you can repair the harness tape using self amalgamating/self fusing silicone tape. One type of self fusing tape is shown below. The picture is a clickable link. 3-M makes this type of tape but it ain't cheap inexpensive.

 

[dravnx]

I use quite a bit of that tape in my industry and be warned it has 0 abrasion resistance. Do not use it any place that rubbing or abrasion can possibly occur.

 

[Uncle Hud]

Russ, thanks for the documentation. In a year or two, somebody's gonna have those symptoms. I hope they find your post; it will save them lots of trouble!

 

[RossKean]

Russ, thanks for the documentation. In a year or two, somebody's gonna have those symptoms. I hope the find your post; it will save them lots of trouble!

The symptoms have been pretty well documented in the past but this was a bit more analytical than some. In any case, I sincerely hope that grounding failures are a thing of the past - at least with respect to "spider" connectors. With luck, you will never run into these issues on your GenIII.

 

[mcatrophy]

... In any case, I sincerely hope that grounding failures are a thing of the past - at least with respect to "spider" connectors. With luck, you will never run into these issues on your GenIII.

You are joking, aren't you? The Gen 3 uses these connectors much more than the Gen 2, not so many for grounds, but more for splitting supplies to such things as the coils, the fuel injectors, starter solenoid feed, the communication bus ...
I think it was ionbeam who did a count, found there were over 30 of the little horrors, most of which would have serious effects and would be difficult to diagnose and find.

I have photographed some of them, a few here:

(Click on image for larger view)

Blue/red - ignition after the cut-off relay? Blue - feed to various sensors, black/white - ECU ground?



Connector beside the battery, blue/red, from the the hazard light fuse?



Bottom centre of picture, fuel injector common



Under tank front left. Blue - feed to various sensors, Red/white - ignition, red/black - ignition from main switch, black/white - ECU ground?



The various ground ones are mostly well hidden.

 

[rbentnail]

Welp fellas, I got it fixed. Bike runs fine but the work is not complete. I still have wrapping to do, re-stuffing to do, etc. But fear not, I took lots of pics. Especially of the surprises I encountered. Like if you unwrap tape just how much wire there is to work with. And what you can do to get the S4 up and out past the coolant pipe to be able to work on it. And how the S4 ground spider is not the same as a ground bus, i.e., it is NOT the main grounding circuit. And if you think the whole spider usage thing is chintzy just wait until you see how the S4 connects to what really is the main ground bus. Frikkin amazing!!

I appreciate all the suggestions of tape, etc. but I do this stuff for a living. Things mentioned regularly reside in my toolbox just because. The plan? 1 wrap of standard electrical tape, glue out. 1 wrap of self adhesing rubber tape. One wrap of standard electrical tape, glue in. Cover all this with high temp abrasion resistant glass tape. Done.

So stay tuned to this channel right chere, there's more to come. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

And as a plus, it looks like my battery isn't dying after all! We'll see in the coming weeks.

 

[RossKean]

rbentnail

I was wondering if you had an incipient spider issue when you were starting to think your OEM battery was finally on the way out. (Didn't sound like battery issues to me.) Anyway, I'm pleased that you got it fixed up and hope you don't have a recurrence in S6 or another one. I will be interested in seeing your photos.

macatrophy

I was aware of your early discovery of the multitude of similar (appearing) grounding devices in the GenIII bikes. There has not been an abundance of failure reports so I am assuming (hoping) that total currents are low enough to prevent the thermal runaway we have seen in the GenII. Either that or we can hope that Yamaha managed to find connectors that are sufficiently robust to handle the loads. Maybe we are just waiting for the GenIII fireworks to begin now that we are three years into the new design.

 

[mcatrophy]

... Maybe we are just waiting for the GenIII fireworks to begin now that we are three years into the new design.

It's just possible I already have.
I don't think there are high current spiders now, the workshop manual circuit diagram shows the spiders, it also shows high current ground junctions without spiders. Hopefully these are properly welded/soldered or whatever.

There is still always the chance that a corroding spider will develop enough resistance to affect the circuit it's completing.

 

[dcarver]

I was about to say how happy I am that I don't own a POS gen3 then realized I do. crap.

 

[RossKean]

The grounding circuit has less tendency to behave like an arc welder if you have somewhat increased resistance but low current (as I am sure you are aware). The circuit, however, could get "noisy" and cause electronic glitches.

I have read your trials with the YCC-S but I didn't think you had drawn any conclusions as to the root cause.

 

[mcatrophy]

....I have read your trials with the YCC-S but I didn't think you had drawn any conclusions as to the root cause.

That's why I wrote "It's just possible ..." .

 

[rbentnail]

rbentnailI was wondering if you had an incipient spider issue when you were starting to think your OEM battery was finally on the way out. (Didn't sound like battery issues to me.) Anyway, I'm pleased that you got it fixed up and hope you don't have a recurrence in S6 or another one. I will be interested in seeing your photos.

At the time that I posted about thinking my battery was dying I saw no other indications of a spider bite. Although I may have simply missed one, I was looking carefully for any hint of something to definitively define the problem. Lacking that evidence I SWAG'd the problem with the general solution of dying battery. But note that no action was taken then to correct "the problem" since, in my mind, the problem had not been clearly defined, i.e., no faults typical of a dying battery.

It's certainly possible that the spider was on its last leg (a pun! Ha!) then, I just had no clear cut signs of it.

 

[rbentnail]

Alrighty, I gots us some pics. The whole thing centers around getting the wiring harness pulled up into the engine compartment to access the S4 Spider for repair.

3 of 4 dash panels removed- remember no solenoid power for glovebox and left lower cowling removed.. Where the S4 spider is is actually a 'T' in the wiring harness. When you look down from the top it goes down and forward. A few better pics follow. Screwdriver points to part of the harness containing 3 plugs to be undone. On the right where the boot cover is by the exposed wires are 2 big plugs. The circle shows the S6 spider.

Small plugs undone

Big plugs undone

 

[Pterodactyl]

You know Russ, if you'd paint that thing a decent color, then you wouldn't have these issues.