FJRiders.com

Did a couple of day rides this weekend.

It's already starting to get warm in Florida.

Need to do the recall on my 13. In another 1,000 miles it will be time for the third valve check. Since I have had no trouble with the cruise control or tail light I will just wait and do it all together.

Rode it over blood mountain and the tricky dick (Richard Russell Raceway). Both were clean and dry. A little more traffic than I would have liked, but the weather was superb.

bill lumberg wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:13 am Rode it over blood mountain and the tricky dick (Richard Russell Raceway). Both were clean and dry. A little more traffic than I would have liked, but the weather was superb.

You win.

Yet another decent day in March for riding. Took the FJR this time, for the first time this year and tried out the new Delkevic mufflers. Every thing worked great. I had put the Delkevic on the Honda 1000 and really like that so no hesitancy in fitting out the FJR.

I think I’m going to pass on TOH and ride hills Thursday and Friday. Saturday, Mrs. Lumberg and I will ride to Helen for the weekend. Looking at the forecasted temps makes me think I might want to put the barkbusters and Cee Bailey back on. Rainy today, so except for a run to the dry cleaners, that might be all the love the fjr gets today.

Jim, while raising our sun we would always spend a week or two at Steamboat State Park. If it's warm when you go up to the top either where high boots or bring a gun with snake loads or both. Remember guns aren't legal in the park. They should call it Rattle Snake Rock.

Thanks Panman. I hiked up to the top yesterday. Temps were down to freezing early yesterday and did not exceed 50° all day. Not one snake was seen or heard perhaps I got lucky or snakes don't like sub 50° weather.

I don't think the rattle snakes come out until it gets into the 70's.

My FJR is 5 years old today.

Don’t know date of manufacture but today is it’s date of birth, rode home from dealer.

New front tire for the start of the season. After putting the tire back on, pumped the brakes and the rear brake lever wasn't coming anything close to coming all the way up. So rear brake lever assembly was pulled apart, got cleaned up and lubed marine grade grease.......smooth as butter now.

I could put this on the what’s the weather thread, but I found this one first. Rode the FJR back from Arkansas after 5 days of fun. The highest temp I saw on the 502 miles hime was 46 and that was brief in St Louis. It mostly ran about 42. Lowest was upon departure from Camp at 38 and then dropping into the valley by the river near my house at 38. I ran the heated seat, grips, and jacket at full power the entire time.

I stopped for gas once in Missouri and once in Illinois. Both times I had to pee and turning off the heated jacket was awful. I also wound up stopping 2 times just to get out of the cold and go inside for a hot tea. I started shivering about 2 min after I got home and turned off the jacket. I can’t imagine why I waited so long to get heated gear. Or what I would have done if my gear would have died on the way back.

Still I had a great time and made some new memories.

I installed a new Admore light kit into Bungies Givi V46 topcase..today I’ll install the wiring in the bike..

Home safe yesterday at 8 pm.

7 days, 6 nights, 2006 miles, and a lot of fun.

Ride report forthcoming...

Nice half day ride. 200 miler with Big dog Griff.

Garmin complained about rear TPMS battery last couple rides. Ignored because sometimes it goes a month of warnings but no TPMS on today’s ride. Stopped for lunch and reseated the battery. Didn’t help. Later stopped to install new battery I carry for just this occasion.

Warmer temperatures, higher pressure. That is good because I haven’t fixed the regulator knob on my compressor. Have ridden cold with as little as 37.7 PSI in the rear. Raised to 42 when rolling. Today was 41.5 with new battery. Nearly 44 at one point.

Nice 132 mile ride. Lots of gravel and dirt on the back roads due to heavy rains.

ionbeam wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:54 am It was in the mid 40s yesterday and there were lot of motorcycles out so it motor-vated me to go check the battery in my FJR. 4.8 volts So yesterday afternoon I hooked my Optimate charger to the battery and crossed my fingers. I just checked the voltage with the charger ON and I now have 13.3 volts and the charger is still charging. Optimate claims my charger can raise the dead, we will see

Well, the verdict is in. The battery is now the living dead. It will start my motorcycle if it doesn't sit for more than a week or so. It will get me through a ride and start my bike after stops. The charging system struggles to keep the battery charged, 5k rpm results in ~13.5 volts, at idle it drops to 12.5 volts. The charging system is good, it's the battery causing the low voltages. Two different battery charger/maintainers can't get the battery to show a full charge.

New battery on order.

ionbeam wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:17 am Well, the verdict is in. The battery is now the living dead. It will start my motorcycle if it doesn't sit for more than a week or so. It will get me through a ride and start my bike after stops. The charging system struggles to keep the battery charged, 5k rpm results in ~13.5 volts, at idle it drops to 12.5 volts. The charging system is good, it's the battery causing the low voltages. Two different battery charger/maintainers can't get the battery to show a full charge.

New battery on order.

I think that is prudent. Installed a voltmeter+USB this winter. Am concerned my NOCO battery tender says it has done its job but I don't see more than 12.4V ignition on, engine off. 13.8-ish idle. 14.4 at 2000+ RPM. Voltage jumps 13.3 to 14.4 when running. Am watching closely.

Yesterday we were leaving for a ride. I pushed the starter and it started then immediately stalled (never done this before). I press the starter and it slowly cranks until I get the click-clicks. I apply a light charge for a short while. It cranks slowly and got click-clicks, then just as I release the starter button the engine fires for a fraction of a second and there is a slight vibration throughout the frame. Frighteningly like what happened when the CCT caused my '04 engine to crush all the intake valves. I charged the battery again, a little more aggressively, and on the next try the engine started right up. However, my dash shows an ES suspension failure icon. I checked the menu and there were no suspension settings. We had our ride and came home and everything was alright except the SCU (Suspension Control Unit) fault light was on and the suspension adjustment doesn't work.

Off to the the FSM. Is there an error code on the right side of the meter assembly? Dunno, off to the garage. Yup, code 44. Back to the FSM, code 44 = EEPROM fault: an error is detected while reading from or writing on EEPROM. That doesn't sound good. I ran ECU diag and found 2 inconsequential codes in memory and successfully cleared them. I ran SCU diag and found one code in history but could not clear it. FSM says to check actuator code 84, it reads the home position for the rear shock stepper motor, it should read 00 and it did in fact read 00. Bummer. The FSM says to disassembly the back of the motorcycle, remove the stepper motor and manually zero the stepper, but according to actuator code 84 it is already zeroed. Depression sets in. I check the price of a suspension SCU -- $1,250 if you can find one. It's time to let things cool down; me, not the bike. Tomorrow is another day.

Today I went at it again. I did today what I did yesterday and got the same results. On a lark, I went back to actuator code 84 -- preload home positioner adjustment and ran it. Shocked I was when the stepper motor started running even though it was at 00. The fact that it ran means that the SCU was working. After ~30 seconds it completed. I went back to History code 62 and it showed one fault. I tried to clear the fault again, and after running actuator code 84 IT CLEARED. Gloriosa!!! I shut down and waited >6 minutes that the FSM said I had to wait before turning it back on again. I turned it on and got a normal boot and no error code. I'm off to give it a road test to be sure it's all better.

Based on the initial symptoms and the dire description of the FSM it didn't bode well but it looks like there is a happy ending. I'll know for sure soon.

Edit to add: After a short but exuberant ride all is well again, maybe I will be able to sleep tonight.

Actually it's what I'm doing to my FJR tomorrow. I'm spinning new rubber onto the front wheel to have a pristine front tire for my ride down to FYB's tech day in Virginia next weekend.

Parked it until my new battery gets here.

We tried to go for a ride today but with 11.8 - 12.0 at idle and a max of 12.5 volts at 5k rpm it's time to quit flogging a dead horse.