I bought some new hangrips for my almost new switchback thinking it would be easy.

Generally all went smooth, although a bit tricky with the throttle eyelets, anyway, I went to put everything back together and as I was tightening the screws that hold the housing on the right side all hell broke loose. The alarm went off and nothing worked. I then managed to somehow turn the alarm off and undid the housing to see what the fuck I did wrong.

As it all came undone I realised that the wires from the housing were damaged. I did not realise that there is a notch on the underside of the handlebar to hold the wires.

I then undid the negative terminal from the battery and got a new fuse and undid all the wires from the housing and it looked as though none were damaged right through, so I retaped each wire so they weren't touching, put everything back (properly this time)

Now I'm getting all the lights on the dash come on and some errors showed up, mainly 'BUSERR', and of course the bike wont start.

I have included a pic of the wires for anyone that can tell me what I can do. They dont look damaged too much, just crimped. Shall I try making the wires bare and then retape, or just get it back to the dealers ( due for service anyway,) I dont particularly want to take it back to dealer, as I wanted to get retroman to service my bike.

Please dont laugh too loud at my stupidity

cheers

John

 

 What can happen sometimes is that the wire might have a number of strands brocken, not all, but a number, A multimeter might show you have correct voltage at end of wire, but when full current flowing through it will cause a voltage drop and increase in current, As so often in electronics, they rely on a measured voltage and/or current siganl and when the receiving device receives a parameter outside these values, fault occurs. Feel along strand and check,

Another thing to do is slice a slit along cable and pry open cable whithout breaking it to inspect wire cores.

 

Don,t fuck around, open ya wallet and take back to the stealer to sort it out

 

Hilly and Mick are both correct, 

I'll put money on that red one being open circuited, like it's shorted out on the bars when ya nipped the housing up and a dead short has melted / zapped the wire, looks like a little hot spot burn colour on the right of the crimp.

 

Hillys method for checking the wires integrity is spot on, cut the wire where it's broke, slip a bit of heatshrink on one side, solder him up, then slide the heat shrink back over the join and heat to shrink.

 

Prolly only one culprit there, but worst is there's only five wires there.

You should be right to just fix the fuckup, and try again. As long as you dont have wires crossed or shorted, you will be right.

Yeah, that's pretty 'stoopid' but you know what, thats how you learn....that's how we all learn really...

I'd say check the wires as advised above, solder if necessary (a bit a heat shrink over the joint would be good), and see what happens. Can't be any worse.

I think disconnecting the positive lead to the battery is always a good idea when working on electrics, apart from when you need to test, of course...

Thanks for all the replies.
I went to altronics and got myself a solder iron, solder and a few lengths of heat shrink and gonna give it a go in the morning. As you all say, I can't fuck it up any more. Rider, you are right, on the red wire there is some wire exposed with a small what looks like burn mark. Anyway, I'll give it a go tomorrow morning. If I fuck it up, then I'll just let the stealers deal with it. I'ts free pick up with Harley assist, so I'll save a little there anyway.
cheers
John

here is a link to a mate's bike that did a similar thing
http://harleytechtalk.org/htt/index.php/topic,48901.msg516198.html#msg516198
 

GEEZUS, I certainly will be taking it back to the dealer if I got anything wrong like that.
Think I will be booking it in on Monday.
Thanks for that scary link.
cheers
John

Hi all,
Was going to listen to Ando and take it back to the dealer, but thought about it more today and decided I can't do anymore harm.
After gently stripping back the covering on the red wire I found it to be good. Next I stripped back the black one and it was broken right through. Looks like you would have lost your money Ando.
Anyway, stripped back the black one for about 1/2 inch as I didnt have much to play with. joined and soldered (mind you I have never touched a soldering iron) but pretty simple, only thing was the heat shrink was a little too small so had to start again. By this time I had lost about an inch of length so had to do the rest to match. All up took me about 1 hour and in this fucking heat too.
Kicked her over before I put all the gizmos back, no probs.

Thanks for your help guys. Learned something new today and in future I'll be more careful.

Going to put on a new dual exhaust tomorrow, so wish me luck.

cheers

John

 

Way to go Idaho!. No one else can do it yourself!

 

Out of something bad comes something good, not only have ya fixed it but ya learnt a new skill ta boot.

 

Looks like ya done a real pro job there John.

Doesn't look to shabby either, we''ll make a auto electrician out of you yet.

Good shit mate on the self fix

I wouldn,t of lost my money as I would have done what you did if I pinched a wire

The new CANBUS bikes can be a bit tricky sometimes but not in your case

Sorry Ando, it wasn't you I was referring to in wasting your money, it was actually Rider that bet any money it was the red wire. It was the black one. So he would have lost his money.

Actually your comments, especially the link, made perfect sense to me and I only went ahead with fixing it myself cos I bought all the gear to do it and thought I couldn't do much harm. Turns out I did OK and learned some new skills. Although this morning I started to take of my exhaust to put on a new one and I thought I better take of the negative terminal and when I turned the main switch on I had no power. At first I thought  ;Fuck, something is wrong again', Then realised I didn't have the fob near the bike.