pretty sure i got screwed

[ts3doug]

a few weeks ago i bout an '08 with the clutch. ran beautiful on test rides and i didn't figure 10k miles was a lot for a 5 year old bike. figured out early on that there were clutch issues, as one member steered me to posslible sticky plate issues. it will not roll with the engine off and in gear with the clutch pulled in.
took it to the dealer and had them put some tires on and told them about the whole clutch plate issue and said i had seen on some forums where the plates could be pulled out and soaked in oil over night. this all seemed to be agreeable, so i left it in their capable hands.

picked the bike up, stupidly in a hurry to make my daugther's softball game, without going over much with them. it rolled in gear, but they had had it running so i wasn't sure. turns out they only bled the clutch. they also ran me down to one flashing bar on fuel gauge which kinda pissed me off. halfway home the ABS light comes on solid and the bike starts sputtering real bad, which i figured was from low on gas. filled up and upon restarting the bike the abs light went out and the sputtering had gone away, for about 3 miles. then the same shit all over again.

tonight i fired it up and let it idle for a good 15 minutes in hopes to reset the adaptives ( works wonders on my triumph when its running rough). made it about 2 miles before the abs light came on and the sputtering started again, headlights dimming and brightening. shortly there after the bike died display goes mostly blank. fired it back up and it ran fine the last 5 blocks to my house. i'm sure if i'd gone another couple miles it would have done it all over again.


so as of now i think i have...

sticking clutch plates
abs issues
electrical issues
and if i rev it from idle it seems like it pings really hard. rev from a higher rpm and no issue.


i'm way depressed about this purchase and just wanted to vent, thanks for you time. i bought the fjr because i've heard they are fairly bullet proof and as my triumph is a little on the unreliable side, bullet proof was what i wanted. now i have two bikes i cant ride without concern of a breakdown.

[HotRodZilla]

Gawd...I hate it when shit goes like that. It sucks, but I think your fixes may be easier than you think.

Do you have any mechanical ability? If so, the following items should help.

First, bleed your brakes. Either do it the standard way, use a Mighty Vac or SpeedBleeders. Its easy!

Then run that VIN by your Yamaha dealer and see if the recalls have been done. Your electrical gremlins could be due to a bad wiring harness that was recalled, or it could just be a bad battery.

I know the battery sounds stupid, but these bikes do Hella weird stuff when the battery is taking a crap.

IF your clutch needs a soak, its crazy easy to do yourself and Mcatrophy on FJRForum has an awesome writeup with pictures to help.

Good luck...Don't stress too much. These bikes are bulletproof, so maybe its just neglect from sitting around...Oh, and I'd run a full can or two of SeaFoam or StarTron through the tank. Old gas is a bitch too!

[ts3doug]

some of the symptoms of the electrical stuff are very similar to my triumph when the battery is knackered or actually its acting a lot like when my speedy has a loose terminal cable.

the clutch i could pull apart and soak myself, but wrenching time is at a minimum for me right now. will get better in july, but i have short trips planned in june and wont be able to get to it by then. (and most of my wrenching time is spent on the triple as its been fighting me lately). the shop told me when i took it in they could do the clutch soak. i called them to ask why they didn't do it, they said bleeding was all that could be done, anything more would require a complete clutch replacement. we i informed them of multiple forum posts that solve this problem by soaking he said, " oh we could do that if you want". never used this shop before, not sure i will in the future. but i kind of want to take it back there in case the abs light is seperate from the electrical and was caused by them during the tire change.

normally i prefer to do all my service work, but the issues on my triumph have me a bit down as well. so i decided on this one to spend the money so i could get riding and not have to f@$k around.


no if you y'all know anything about cooling systems i may start a help me thread on that as i'm running out of ideas. one more part coming, if that don't get speedy going, i'm stumped.

[ts3doug]

thanks for the talk down, i'm now much more optimistic. checked battery cables before work this morning and the positive cable was indeed loose. just took it for a quick shakedown run and all seems well. (knock on wood). now all i need to do is address the clutch and i think i'll be very happy. i'm on call this weekend but i'm gonna try to get a couple hundred miles in, then perhaps a longer go down to st louis or something next weekend. if all goes well there, its on like cheese spread this summer and fall.


thank you mr zilla

[extrememarine]

At EOM 2011 in Cumberland Falls, we did the ignition bypass in the parking lot on a bike that would not start - we found after that it was a loose battery terminal... May people have chased gremlins that have circled back to a weak battery...

[yamafitter]

I know of one FJR that ran without the battery cable even being connected. It was just sitting on top of the battery terminal but there was so much other junk under the battery cover there was just enough pressure to get enough of a connection for the bike to start and run sometimes. This is just one in a long line of wrenching mishaps that made us take BikerGeek's tools away from him. The first time at one of Bust's Tech days we were watching Andy trying to wrench on something but it was just too painful for us to watch. We ended up telling him to put the wrench down and back away. This is why we make Andy bring the beer to Tech Day and Ray & I take care of the maintenance on the Geek's bike.

The Geek reminds me of a Jewish buddy who also has an aversion towards tools. My buddy's workbench consists of a phone and a list of contractors.

[beemerdons]

I know of one FJR that ran without the battery cable even being connected. It was just sitting on top of the battery terminal but there was so much other junk under the battery cover there was just enough pressure to get enough of a connection for the bike to start and run sometimes. This is just one in a long line of wrenching mishaps that made us take BikerGeek's tools away from him. The first time at one of Bust's Tech days we were watching Andy trying to wrench on something but it was just too painful for us to watch. We ended up telling him to put the wrench down and back away. This is why we make Andy bring the beer to Tech Day and Ray & I take care of the maintenance on the Geek's bike.

The Geek reminds me of a Jewish buddy who also has an aversion towards tools. My buddy's workbench consists of a phone and a list of contractors.

Bill you are just downright mean and nasty to The Geek, I thought that you Canucks were supposed to be polite! Still can't believe you threw a bookcase at Andy, REALLY! That's almost as bad as that Canadian Neil Young putting a bomb on Lynyrd Skynrd's airplane over the song "Sweet Home Alabama"!

[Bounce]

I remember waking to that morning radio announcement in my college dorm room (after 2 years in the Army upon leaving High School).

Not as stunned as when I heard John Lennon had died (married by then).

[wpbfjr]

i lived a few miles up the road from there in french camp, ms...

[ts3doug]

Last year I saw merle haggard and Kris kristofferson at the surf ballroom in clear lake Iowa. Neat place to see a show, didn't get a chance to visit the crash site, but it's on my agenda for this year.

[Bugnatr]

I saw the original Skynyrd 9th row from the front. Great show, they were f'd up. Never saw so many JD bottles on the floor of the Saint Paul, Mn. civic center as that night.

Ahh...the 70's.