Crisis averted I think

[Chrisj CMA]

So, Im on my way home from helping a buddy in Pensacola with his Valkyrie.  I stop at the mall for some Christmas shopping and when I restart the bike to move to the motorcycle parking I hear a loud POP under the  seat.  Well, that cant be good.

Off with the side cover and sure enough the starter solenoid,relay.switch thingy blew the connector wide open



So, I spent a half an your with my pocket knife prying and digging and praying that I can get that thing back in shape enough to reconnect it to get the 50 miles I need to for home.

Long story short, I carefully sorted out the plastic shards and repositioned all the wire connectors so it would go on and the bike started just fine and I got home.

So I cut that blown connector off and made some pig tails



The end that goes into the solenoid body is just heavy duty 1/4" shrouded connectors from AutoZone


After the pigtails are attached



I plugged the business ends up to the relay and filled in the rest of the box with liquid electrical tape to hold it all together and seal it from dust and moisture



Then taped it up with gaffers tape and I think its a winner, fires up perfect and after a few short rides today, nothing funny going on with it, so it will stay like that for awhile I suppose, cant see why not

[Firefighter]

Should be fine, looks great. I cleaned mine and used something maybe dielectric grease a year ago or so hoping to prevent this. Mine was ok at the time, looked clean and all, just preventive maintenance after reading these forums. Guessing they get dirty and wet causing high resistance and then heat and burn up.  Don't need that!    Firefighter

[Chrisj CMA]

Should be fine, looks great. I cleaned mine and used something maybe dielectric grease a year ago or so hoping to prevent this. Mine was ok at the time, looked clean and all, just preventive maintenance after reading these forums. Guessing they get dirty and wet causing high resistance and then heat and burn up.  Don't need that!    Firefighter

Firefighter, I did the same as you.  Every few months took it apart, made sure it was clean sealed the base of the connectors with dilactic grease....I thought I was immune to this happening......WRONG, that plastic piece just doesn't last forever

[Chrisj CMA]

Just had a brainstorm.  I thought, that unprotected fuse doesn't look right.  So I got the dremel out



after a minute or so it looked like this



Now that fuse is all warm and cozy

[gordonv]

Firefighter, I did the same as you.  Every few months took it apart, made sure it was clean sealed the base of the connectors with dilactic grease....I thought I was immune to this happening......WRONG, that plastic piece just doesn't last forever

You did regular maintenance on the relay/connector, and still had this happen? Now that is some comforting info.

I'm wondering if it might be something within the relay causing it to overheat and take out the connectors. Time will tell if this happens again after the mod.

[saddlesore]

Good thing you had the brains to figure out what was wrong and fix it to get home.  Now I have something else to check on my bike to try to prevent it from happening to me.
Thanks

[Chrisj CMA]

Firefighter, I did the same as you.  Every few months took it apart, made sure it was clean sealed the base of the connectors with dilactic grease....I thought I was immune to this happening......WRONG, that plastic piece just doesn't last forever

You did regular maintenance on the relay/connector, and still had this happen? Now that is some comforting info.

I'm wondering if it might be something within the relay causing it to overheat and take out the connectors. Time will tell if this happens again after the mod.

Gordon, it was my assessment and that of the AutoZone dude, that the plastic had just deteriorated until electric current was no longer being blocked from one connection to another then that causes a short and the heat.  The plastic in that box shaped part was crumbly and brittle almost like weak styrofoam.

[gordonv]

If deteriorating plastic is what might be causing this failure, then maybe a modification is something required.

On my old VT1100T, there was the bundle of wires from the stator under the seat. On some, this overheats, melts the connector. Some have even gone as far as cutting the connectors off, and soldering the leads together.

I wonder if it might be better to do something like what you did, used spade connectors and nice rubber protectors in place of the OEM wire harness.

Someone else had posted before about separating the relay from the fuse. He wired a single fuse harness into the fuse side of the circuit, and a GW relay.

[R J]

I found in several this got started due to no relay on add on accessories, particularly like DRIVING lights, fairly high wattage.

That was what blew MGM out of the water one day on a nice leisure ride around town.

I replaced that plastic connector with one off of an older GoldWing several years and many miles ago, to date no problems.

PS:  I added a relay to the driving lights also at the time I had the blow out.
The Tech that did the job at the shop, no longer works there.     He heard he was going to get fired and one Friday night shortly after this incident, he packed up his tools on a trailer and went off down the road without a word one way or the other.

Then several of the jobs he had done prior, started coming back with failures.  I didn't like comebacks then and the son doesn't like them now.   So, inspection of work performed has been going on for about 2 years of every vehicle that comes through the door before it is classified as DONE.

[BobB]

I had that connector get fried on my very first road trip with the Valk in 2008.  Also had to fix it in a parking lot, learn how to jump start it and permanently fix it once I got back home.  I did almost exactly what you did...

[Firefighter]

Guess I had better put it on my Valk to do list, and check everything again.  Firefighter

[Oss]

is this just a 97 thing?

I know I have relays on all of my aux items

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

Evan my 1999 fried ... Been there, done that... I was lucky enough to have a very low mile parts bike to rob all the needed parts from. This crap is real people and will only get worse as the Fat Girl gets longer in tooth.

[Chrisj CMA]

Exactly Joe.  I think if you ignore the periodic maintenance (cleaning and such) it will happen sooner, but it seems it will happen eventually.  Joe and I seem to have the same disease, fear of a dirty Valkyrie and it happened to both of us!  I do monthly or bi-monthly "under cover" cleaning.  That's where I take off everything that is a cover even the gas tank (sometimes) to clean and inspect under the covers.

I now have a set of pigtails in the trunk of my bike.  I do ride with other Valkyries and Im sure the minute we get past "pushing it home" distance the probability of frying a relay goes way up.  

The friend I was helping when mine fried (after I showed him what I did) has told me he fixed his the same way I did, but not even as secure and its lasted 7 or 8 years already so I am confident I have a long term fix and it can be done on the side of the road in 5 minutes in the dark while raining, isint that when this crap usually happens

[Patrick]

Good old American ingenuity again ! That looks like a heck of a fix.

[da prez]

 Just the normal starting will cause this eventuly.  A loose connection will cause a heat build-up.
 As I have said many times , verify a good ground , as resistence increases , so do electrical problems. (related) Unplug ,clean and tighten the connections , and use silicone diaelectric grease. It creates an air tight connection. I am not saying it will cure all the problems , but it will help.
  I replace a lot of wiring and connectors on bikes that were loose or needed cleaning. Also , never use a scotch lock for permenant repairs. they pierce a wire and become loose causing resistence and eventuly wiring problems.

                                             da prez

[Chrisj CMA]

I reposted this thread to hopefully help someone with what sounded like the same problem. So I thought I’d follow up to say the fix is still going strong. Have not done anything else to it since the original post

[mello dude]

I reposted this thread to hopefully help someone with what sounded like the same problem. So I thought I’d follow up to say the fix is still going strong. Have not done anything else to it since the original post

Good post....  
Hi - unfortunately this is a common problem with all Honda's for the last 20 years as the solenoid and relay is common among most Honda models. Honda likes to buy huge quantities of certain parts to get the best cost they can from their vendors.

So, yeah, figure this as a maintenance item to check off and on. Eventually the plastic melts away... - I have a new one on the shelf for the VFR coming up for winter maintenance.

[baldo]

Here's a link to get a replacement red connector for the starter solenoid.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/solenoid-connectors.html

[JimC]

You can also buy a new relay through Amazon for less than $10.
So check it regularly and replace it at the first sign of brittle plastic connectors.

Jim

[..]

Nothing wrong with resurrecting old posts no matter what a very few forum members might think.

[mello dude]

Here's a link to get a replacement red connector for the starter solenoid.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/solenoid-connectors.html

Thanks for reminding me about CycleTerminal.  Good source of cycle electric fix it stuff.

[Chrisj CMA]

Here's a link to get a replacement red connector for the starter solenoid.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/solenoid-connectors.html

Thanks, just ordered one just in case

[Gnarly]

Here's a link to get a replacement red connector for the starter solenoid.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/solenoid-connectors.html

Thanks for reminding me about CycleTerminal.  Good source of cycle electric fix it stuff.

My thoughts,exactly! I had lost their link in my bookmarks. Thanx!

[Toledo Mark]

My 1999 did that about 10 years ago. Left me stranded 70 miles from home. Called a friend to trailer me home.