tacho and tacho lights failure - diagnosis please?

[Mike Sands]

Symptoms today were that first the left heated grip went off then the right about 10 minutes later then I noticed that nothing was working on the tach and the needle was stuck at 3000rpm. Checked fuses and found a 10amp blown. Replaced it and on starting tach began to sweep and the normal checklights came on briefly before failing again. Found the 10amp fuse blown again. Put a third one in and it blew too .... Bought some trekmates inner gloves and rode home with cold hands.
Any suggestion for me to tell the dealer on Monday ... they are OK but relatively new to Triumph, so any pointer we can give them I'm sure they'd appreciate.
Bike's done 12k miles but is still under warranty.
Thanks
Mike

 

[leigh_m_gardner]

i had the very same problem mike on my 2006 rocket3. the main stream of thought was there was a grounded earth 'somewhere' on the bike. the dealer checked the bike from top to bottom and could not find any wiring issues. in the end the tach quit working with all the fuses intermitently blowing - it showed 888888 on the display. i had to have my clock replaced under warranty and since then no more problems, so i suspect its a fault in the clock itself.

 

[Mike Sands]

Thanks Leigh. I have contacted Triumph North East, but I'm worried that it might be something simple and if I let them take it away, it could be gone a long time. I have read a couple of other threads and it sounds like something at the front end is shorting and causing this 10amp fuse to repeatedly blow. If anyone has got any suggestions about what items to check (and how), I'd much appreciate it. Since it was the heated grips that started failing first, I think it's probably fairly easy to disconnect these (under the tank?), put a new fuse in and see if it blows. Have already tried it with the heated grip switch switched off, but it still blew. Can the old ignition switch problem cause this? Bike starts and runs fine though.
I have heated bike gear (WarmnSafe), but the terminals for that - direct on the battery - are sound, and anyway that continued working quite happily even though the rest of the bike was gradually giving up the ghost.
Any ideas for things I can easily check would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Mike

 

[Geek_Law]

I had a similar problem when I hooked up heated gloves to the bike.

First, remove the leads for the new gear.

Second, un-hook the battery, and leave it off for about 10 minutes to make sure your memory clears and resets.

third, hook up battery, see if you are back to normal with the tach. I'm guessing you will be.

Fourth, assuming your are back to normal; wire in the positive DIRECT to the battery WITH an in-line fuse.

Fifth, wire in the negative DIRECT to the battery.

See if that works for you.

Now then, if you don't have a switch, or want it to come on and off with the bike or a particular switch on the bike, wire up a relay to control the power, but keep your direct connections to the battery. That should have you in business.

If the tach doesn't come back to life at step three ... then you are outside of my expertise.

-GL

 

[Mike Sands]

Thanks GL. Will give that a try tomorrow. However, my heated gear is already wired as you suggest (direct to battery and fused) .... but here's hoping
Mike

 

[Geek_Law]

Thanks GL. Will give that a try tomorrow. However, my heated gear is already wired as you suggest (direct to battery and fused) .... but here's hoping
Mike

Hmmm ... well, at least try to remove the NEW stuff and get back to a known state by letting the memory reset. Leave it unplugged for a while if 10 minutes doesn't work. I don't know how long it takes for the memory to deplete in the ECM, but I can attest to the fact that myself, and others, have seen wacky electrical things just like this that were solved by giving the bike a solid reboot.

Sucks when the bike is not working. Hope you get it sorted.

 

[Mike Sands]

Partial success GL. Took the battery off for 10 minutes, replaced the 10 amp fuse that keeps blowing. This time when I switched back on the fuse didn't blow, but smoke began coming from the heated grip switch. I've taken it apart and I think the problem is in the pink covered wire as I can see bare metal inside the shroud. I will take the whole heated switch wiring loom off tonight and see if that sorts it.
Mike

 

[Geek_Law]

... smoke began coming from the heated grip switch. ...
Mike

Eeeks. That's scary. At least you have it narrowwed down to a very potential failure point.

 

[Mike Sands]

I'm logging progress on here .... in case anyone else suffers similar symptoms. Lifted the tank this morning and disconnected everything to do with the heated grips. All clocks and check lights resumed normal function and didn't blow any fuses. I think I need to check the resistance of each heated grip to ensure there isn't a short in one of them. Contacted Triumph dealer and asked them to check with Triumph that they will cover this under the warranty, before they come and pick up the bike. Waiting to hear (update - triumph have confirmed they are covered for 2 years as they were fitted at PDI).
The worrying news is that the pink wire to the switch had melted its sheath right down to the connector under the tank .... could have been a big problem.
Mike

 

[owl]

Glad you're getting there, Mike.

Doesn't bear thinking about that wire underneath that much petrol.