Here's the problem.
Have an '07 XL 1200L. It's a working bike with nearly 20K miles on it. Runs great with no serious problems in three years - except for this one nuisance that is making me crazy!
Last summer I had a first instance of the speedo just dropping to zero. You know the gig - no turn signal auto-off, rough/fast idle, check-engine light and stored low VSS output code. I read up on this and it seemed right on schedule. With that many miles, the VSS had a moderate amount of gunk on it, so cleaned it off and no worries. Hah!
A week later I'm out riding with friends and cracked the throttle pretty good off a stop light and right up around 5K revs the speedo just drops again. Okay. Pull over, turn it off, count to ten, start it back up and everything is fine again. Until I hit the throttle wide open and bang, it will drop to zero every time. BTW, there will be NO stored diag codes until I ride it long enough for the ECM to figure out something is wrong and turns on the "check engine" light, e.g. everything reads like the bike is going 100 MPH but the VSS system says it's standing still.
So, I read up some more on this and find a lot of folks with newer machines are reporting voltage regulator problems related to speedo dumps as the voltage output is too high at full revs. Okay, this makes sense so in goes a new voltage regulator (this is after having it to my local dealer - good guys - and they can't find a thing wrong after putting their break-out on it and riding it for a while). Now the problem changes but is just as repeatable. I can run the bike all day at 6K and the speedo will never dump. BUT, come to stop light and give it a little too much juice from a dead stop and bang, now the speedo dumps at maybe 20 MPH. Having changed the voltage regulator and cleaned the VSS, I decided to go for another $50 and replaced the VSS. No change at all.
I can make it dump this way all day long and never see a diagnostics code get recorded so long as I reset it quickly. For instance, if I make the mistake of starting a little too quickly (it seems to never dump if I baby it off the light but can crack the whip once I'm in second gear all I want) and see the speedo dump, I just give it a bit more speed, pull in the clutch, flick off the run switch, count to three, flick the run switch back on and the speedo reads correctly again and I restart the engine all in a distance of 100 yards or so.
Weather's been rainy here the past week or two, so I took some time to pull off the seat and tank and traced the wires for this circuit. It looks pretty straightforward. Three wires between the VSS and ECM - looks to be power/ground/output. I'm assuming that the VSS output signal is interpreted by the ECM and sends the appropriate signal to the speedo.
End of story or am I missing something? I rang out the lines disconnected for possible ground/line-to-line shorts and they all checked okay as did end-to-end continuity. My dealer wrenches say replace the speedo next but I'm thinking it's the ECM or something else I'm missing. Has anyone else had this experience? I've even taken it out on some really bad roads to bounce the (EDITED) out of the machine (painful on a low) to see if it would cause the speedo to drop out. That is, the dealer guys think that perhaps the first gear jolt of too much throttle indicates a mechanical problem internal to the speedo which resets when the ignition is cut off and back on. But the speedo held steady after many rides down the bumpy road which is making me think it an ECM problem. I'm just hoping there aren't a dozen other inputs the ECM uses in addition to the VSS input to generate a speedo signal.
It would be great if someone else has had a similar experience that could yea or nea on this or offer some other explanation.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the length of the story but its an odd one.
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Please read and understand the info in this link...
started the bike 2 days ago, just to let her idle for a few minutes, its been about 2 weeks since it was started. When she fired, she was running on 1 cyl. I shut it down, checked spark on both cylinders....the frt would spark every so often, no spark from the rear cyl. Now I dont have spark on either plug. I have replaced the cps and the coil.
All connections are tight. Battery is fully charged. ]]>
this is what i have already done..
1.replaced coil,plugs and wires.
2.replaced crank sensor
3.replaced tsm and redone learn process
4.replaced tssm and keyfob didn't work either
5.checked all fuses,and relay.
6.tested with meter all conections more than two times over the whole bike..
7.checked fuel tank,vacuum hose for cracks,etc..
bike will turn over,and over and over but no fire...funny thing is it has fire between coil wire and plug with tester but will not fire the plug..have changed plugs several times and gapped..what is wrong with this thing.. ]]>
The Regulator is an HD part # 74631-06 black box. I don't have the published current specs on this regulator but I believe it is rated at 38 amps. After de-potting the unit I was able to identify the vender & designer to be Tympanium Corporation out of Malden MA 02148 (Charge Indicators, Regulators & Ignition Modules for Small Engines from Tympanium Corporation).
The reversed schematic I was able to come up with is broken down into 2 free hand pages. Note that the unit (as expected) contains real no filtering or smoothing of ripple content. The battery in this case is the primary ripple filter. Sheet 1 is the business end of the regulator which is responsible for all the heavy current switching. Six components are primarily responsible for controlling and directing the 3 outputs of the stator. I would guess 75% of all failed regulators are probably the result of 1 of these 6 following components going shorted.
(3X) 2n6507 (25 amp@ 400v) SCR by ON Semiconductor Corp.
(3X) FES16GT (16amp@400v) TO220 Rectifier.
Note: The tabs of the SCR'S (Anode) are machine screw to frame ground.
The Tabs on the Rectifiers were isolated but heatsinked.
Remember unlike an automotive alternator that has an electromagnet field winding, HD alternators are Permanent Magnet. That changes the entire landscape of regulator design. Instead of regulating the output of the alternator by increasing or decreasing the strength of the field winding as is done in an automotive alternator, output regulation is done by controlling the gates of the SCR's since the field in our case is a fixed strength permanent magnet. Sheet 2 is the regulation circuits of the entire regulator. Note that the sole responsibility of page 2 is to control the gates of the SCR's. The entire regulator was made up entirely of discrete components. Not one integrated circuit (multi pin dip) was used. I do like what I saw. It was nicely made & looked to represent a fair price for what it contained and on top of that it appeared to be US made.
I also included 2 waveform pictures from my ’09 Dyna to show what a baseline view of ripple will be at idle and also what the wave looks like when the regulator starts kicking in to limit (or regulate) the charging voltage. In the 1st scope picture you can clearly see the ripple frequency was 475 Hz/sec. That number is correct because since there are 3 phases to the stator and there are 6 rotor magnets, each revolution of the crank shaft will yield 18 voltage crests. Now multiply 18 by the RPM of the engine (1575 RPM), and dividing by 60 (60 seconds/min) will give you the frequency of the voltage ripple, which in this case was 475/sec. If something was wrong with 1 of those SCRs or Diodes mentioned above, that frequency would not be correct at the RPM under test.
Keep this in mind if your really trying to see if your regulator is bad. If you see the correct number of "crests" with no gaps, at least you know all 3 phases are making their way to your battery.
Scope picture 2 shows the regulator turning off the SCR’s thereby limiting the stator output from overcharging the battery. That will be the voided time period when the ripple appears to be missing. This is the action you will see when the regulator is doing its job and is limiting the charge going to the battery. This is totally unlike what you will see with electromagnetic field magnets (rotors) as found in automobiles. (The double images you see in both scope pictures were caused by the long shutter speed of the camera without using a flash & not due to lack of proper scope sync)
Just having some Fun so if you see any brutal mistakes, plz be easy on me. Hope you found it interesting.
Hoop!
Saturday went for a nice long ride. I got back into town to fill up and when I started the bike back up, the CEL came on. Now it could have been on before, but the first time I noticed it was after restarting the bike.
I rode home from the gas station (1 mile) and ran the DTCs... P2138 (TGS Corelation Error) and P1510 (EFI Limited Performance Mode). I cleared out the codes, went back and loosened up the throttle grip some (alittle more play) and restarted the bike. No CEL.
Sunday went for another long ride... No CEL.
Do you think that when I adjusted my throttle grip on Friday for some reason, it would have tripped those two codes?
I have V&H slip-ons, Big Sucker intake and TFI. No problems what so ever for an entire year.
Thanks! ]]>
I'm pretty inexperienced with repairing electrical issues. I was wondering if anyone could please give me some tips on this one.
I have a 2001 XL1200S. Recently the right blinker flutters on and off, when the blinker is not activated. So the front right yellow light gets brighter off and on, and at the exact same time, the rear blinker goes on as well. Also, at the same exact time, the right turn signal indicator flickers. Often it won't do this until I rev the engine to about 2000rpm - so in a sense, it's intermittent.
Although I don't know too much about electrical repairs, I'm sure it's safe to say that the bulbs are all fine. I'm guessing that there is some kind of short or cross somewhere. I looked at the manual's electrical diagram and it appears that it's a brown wire that applies to the turn signal lamps. But I don't really know how to start going about the troubleshooting.
Thanks! ]]>
Thanks for reading this thread. I'm trying to figure out if it's ok to try to pry the glass cover off of my tach. There are some dead spiders in there!