Well Heck

[Chrisj CMA]

Nice day rode to church. All was great. Bike ran so good. Come out of church and NOTHING. It happened once before so I thought maybe battery cable got loose. Nope. Functioned the start switch and the kill switch a couple thousand times. Nothing. Took the right side panel off and there it was. The hot lead to the solenoid was fried. I had the parts so I replaced with a new lead but I got all the lights back but no start. Jumped it with a screwdriver and got home. I guess the solenoid is fried. $70 at pro caliber but it’s on the way. Amazon has them for $8 but I can’t trust that. 8 bucks. Gotta be a cheap China crap imitation. So I’m glad it’s rain all this week. By the time the fronts pass the solenoid should be here or almost. So there’s that!!!!  

[Avanti]

Good to have a motorcycle that you know how to troubleshoot and can still take you home.

[Chrisj CMA]

Good to have a motorcycle that you know how to troubleshoot and can still take you home.

Ya one thing I always loved about the Valkyries is even a dunce like me can work on them respectfully

[The emperor has no clothes]

The Florida salt air must be hard on this stuff. Didn’t this happen before on your bike ?

[Chrisj CMA]

The Florida salt air must be hard on this stuff. Didn’t this happen before on your bike ?

Yes, yes it did some ten years or so ago. I’ve had the bike here in the Florida salt air for 19.5 years and if every ten years I have to fix something, well I’m good with that.

[The emperor has no clothes]

The Florida salt air must be hard on this stuff. Didn’t this happen before on your bike ?

Yes, yes it did some ten years or so ago. I’ve had the bike here in the Florida salt air for 19.5 years and if every ten years I have to fix something, well I’m good with that.

It wasn’t meant as a knock. Just interesting how different climates have such an effect on stuff.

[Chrisj CMA]

The Florida salt air must be hard on this stuff. Didn’t this happen before on your bike ?

Yes, yes it did some ten years or so ago. I’ve had the bike here in the Florida salt air for 19.5 years and if every ten years I have to fix something, well I’m good with that.

It wasn’t meant as a knock. Just interesting how different climates have such an effect on stuff.

Understand. However, just because our climate is different doesn’t mean that was the cause.

[RonW]

Glad you were able to start the bike with a screwdriver. Always a bad feeling.

The prongs on the starter relay are so close to each other that if the prong for the red wire gets fried it's liable to affect the nearby prong for the start button circuit.

Pancho mentioned in a previous thread that adding a 2nd red wire to the starter relay lessens the electrical strain on the female blade terminal for the red wire. The 2nd red wire gets crimped to the factory red wire like below.




The 'red wire' goes from the starter relay to the ignition switch (keybox). By factory design, only a single red wire plugs into the starter relay even though a 2nd red wire would have reduced the electrical strain on the female blade terminal by 50%, theoretically. Meanwhile, the adjacent and available +12 prong goes unused.

The factory does though split the red wire into 2 branches at the opposite end of the red wire. The ignition switch end of the red wire (R, below).




Anyways, minus well just run a 2nd red wire from the starter relay and crimp it to the 2nd red wire at the ignition switch. I guess it's safe to disconnect the factory crimp at the Y. On many other bikes, the alternator/stator wire is connected to the unused prong on the Valk starter relay. The same prong is not available. And so on.

[indybobm]

This is an on going problem with many bikes including the Valkyrie that use slide on connections. Even the one in the red cap is a slide on connection. If you look at the terminal, there is not a lot of contact between the two different pieces. The relay has spade connections that accept the female pin. Any lose of tension on the female connector can result in an increase of resistance which results in heat. After a little corrosion sets up, you end up with a melted red cap on the relay. As has had been suggested earlier, i made a 'Y' jumper to spread the load at the relay. It made it more reliable but still used the slide on connectors that can cause problems but it at least moves the problem away from the relay itself.

[sixlow]

Jeff, I have the 8 dollar solenoid in my tourer for 3 or 4 years now, so far so good.

[indybobm]

There are a number of modifications that can be done and they work well. The key is to reduce, or at least not ad, to the current going through the red wire to the ignition switch. No matter what you do, periodically check for the start of corroded connections. That usually means extra resistance to current flow which results in heat which can melt things.

[Mooskee]

When I worked in nuclear power, we had a problem with some control circuit contacts getting high resistance due to oxidation. The engineers researched and approved the use of this, which we bought at Napa Auto Parts! https://wurthusa.com/Chemical-Product/Cleaning-and-Care/Electronics/Stabilant-22A-Electrical-Contact-Enhancer-15-Ml/p/0893622

It is expensive. You only get 2 ounces for $79, but it works. I am seriously considering using it on every electrical connection as I do maintenance. It is made for this situation.

[RonW]

The relay has spade connections that accept the female pin.

• Any lose of tension on the female connector can result in an increase of resistance which results in heat.

• After a little corrosion sets up, you end up with a melted red cap on the relay.

The female blade's retention barb (arrow, below) may get flatten and won't lock the female blade in its slot. Then press fitting the red plug onto the starter relay won't move the female blade down with it and seat the female blade on its prong, here. The barb isn't locking the female blade internally to the red plug. Doesn't happen every day. But I've had a female blade pop out with a slight tug on its wire.

[Chrisj CMA]

The relay has spade connections that accept the female pin.

• Any lose of tension on the female connector can result in an increase of resistance which results in heat.

• After a little corrosion sets up, you end up with a melted red cap on the relay.

The female blade's retention barb (arrow, below) may get flatten and won't lock the female blade in its slot. Then press fitting the red plug onto the starter relay won't move the female blade down with it and seat the female blade on its prong, here. The barb isn't locking the female blade internally to the red plug. Doesn't happen every day. But I've had a female blade pop out with a slight tug on its wire.

Ya, I bought that kit. It looks so wimpy I think I will use my own runners again. Only this time solder them instead of crimp joints.

[indybobm]

This is the part of the female crimp connector that ensures a tight fit with the spade connector in the starter relay. If those barrel sections open up and do not clamp in the pin, you have problems.

[Tfrank59]

Well heck if that happened to me I’m pretty sure I’d be asking a friend to bring me home from church :-) I wish I could give you a call to get my bike going when I get stuck on the side of the road especially something electrical like that, but I’m at the opposite end of the lower 48. And I’m pretty sure if I checked in my tool kit I would see that cheap eight dollar solenoid in there somewhere, but I’d be on the forum with my phone to figure out what to do with it 

[Madmike]

When I worked in nuclear power, we had a problem with some control circuit contacts getting high resistance due to oxidation. The engineers researched and approved the use of this, which we bought at Napa Auto Parts! https://wurthusa.com/Chemical-Product/Cleaning-and-Care/Electronics/Stabilant-22A-Electrical-Contact-Enhancer-15-Ml/p/0893622

It is expensive. You only get 2 ounces for $79, but it works. I am seriously considering using it on every electrical connection as I do maintenance. It is made for this situation.

........check out the thin film aerosol,

https://ship-2-shore.com/automotive-2/

[Chrisj CMA]

Well heck if that happened to me I’m pretty sure I’d be asking a friend to bring me home from church :-) I wish I could give you a call to get my bike going when I get stuck on the side of the road especially something electrical like that, but I’m at the opposite end of the lower 48. And I’m pretty sure if I checked in my tool kit I would see that cheap eight dollar solenoid in there somewhere, but I’d be on the forum with my phone to figure out what to do with it 

Trust me. I asked everyone I knew with a trailer to help me haul it home. One trailer had no tie down locations. The other two had family over for Father’s Day. I had no choice but to splice in another hot lead plug it in and jump the cables with a screwdriver and hope it started. And of course it did.

[Tfrank59]

Right on. Definitely helps to be resourceful. BTW you’re obviously not a dunce 

[Chrisj CMA]

Right on. Definitely helps to be resourceful. BTW you’re obviously not a dunce 

Thanks 

[Mooskee]

........check out the thin film aerosol,

https://ship-2-shore.com/automotive-2/
Posted on: Today at 08:43:53 AMPosted by: Tfrank59

That looks like good stuff. The following property of Stabilant 22A intrigues me. It actually improves the connection like a solder joint.

When applied to contacts, it provides the connection reliability of a soldered joint without bonding the contacting surfaces together

[Chrisj CMA]

Well, what do ya know. Just for craps and giggles I cleaned up that solenoid soldered all new jumper leads in incorporating the double hot lead mod and the dang thing starts. 

[RonW]

This is the part of the female crimp connector that ensures a tight fit with the spade connector in the starter relay. If those barrel sections open up and do not clamp in the pin, you have problems.

I was refering to what keeps the female blade locked in its indivdual slot in the red cap. Otherwise, no matter how hard you push on the red cap, you won't get the female blade to seat on the male prong. That is, if the female blade slips in the red cap.

If you don't screw around with the female blade, odds are you'd never have a problem with the retention barb. You have to flatten the barb in order to release the female blade from the red cap. But then the barb has to be re-bent to its original position.







While we're on the topic, there's probably a tool to reset the female blade's tightness. If you squeeze it with a pliers with all your might, it don't work. My theory is that this flattens the edges of the half circles on the female profile, the half barrel edges, in the process (red rectangles). The straigntend edges lack the spring of the half circle profile.

You do get a snug fit initially, but any time the male prong prys against the reshaped female blades, the half barrels now no longer spring back and any gap remains in place.