Speedo and ABS lights going haywire

[sketty]

Not my first post here but got wiped out for not posting for awhile....Anyhow riding my 06 1200GSA in tropical down pours (theres a cyclone off the Queensland coast) my red warning light comes on,the brake failure lights are flashing and my speedo reads zero then jumps all over the place.Pull over switch off and restart and all is fine.Done it a few times now.Soaked everything with WD40 thingy but it still does it in very very heavy rain. The bike is now out of warranty and it has done 80,000 kilometers. The big red flashing light that says "sell me quick" hasnt come on yet though.

Thanks for any info.............Chris Jones

 

[Ali-bear]

Hmm sounds like a wiring fault, possibly insulation damaged in the loom somewhere around the headstock? Water gets in and ...

Either that or Satan is up to his old tricks

 

[Wapping]

Sounds like nothing of the sort.

Look at your final drive. It is probably breaking up. The break up effects the speed sensor, housed behind the rear wheel, which in turn buggers the display up. The bike gets confusing messages. It knows it is going forward, but the speed sensor of the rear wheel reads zero, so the ABS thinks it is all up the Swannie..... The ABS brake failure light is flashing like a demon but the brakes still work... The Devil himself has invaded the machine.....I am going forward at a steady 80 kph but the speedo goes from zero to 120 and anywhere in between....

Mine (and many others too numerous to mention) did and displayed identical symptoms. All fixed with no great drama.

 

[MattW]

Sounds like nothing of the sort.

Look at your final drive. It is probably breaking up. The break up effects the speed sensor, housed behind the rear wheel, which in turn buggers the display up. The bike gets confusing messages. It knows it is going forward, but the speed sensor of the rear wheel reads zero, so the ABS thinks it it all up the Swanny.....

Mine (and many others too numerous to mention) did and displayed identical symptoms. All fixed with no great drama.

Why does it only do it in heavy rain then?

 

[Wapping]

Why does it only do it in heavy rain then?

Coincidence.

The OP simply said he was riding in a tropical storm.... It appears to have been one journey (or a few), interspaced by downpours of biblical proportions. Mine, identical in all bar weather, happened on an overcast day in April....

Switch the bike off, the electrics shut down and reset, problem solved, for a while. Ride a bit and the breaking up final drive again buggers the sensor, so restarting the St Vitus dance on the instruments.

Had the gear position indicator (not the speedo) leapt all over the place, then it may well have been water in the gear position switch. Another common fault.

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143189

 

[MattW]

Coincidence.
The OP simply said he was riding in a tropical storm....

Fair enough, I was just this bit which made me associate it with water

Soaked everything with WD40 thingy but it still does it in very very heavy rain.

but hey - I've not got one of these 1200 things

Look at your final drive. It is probably breaking up.
Mine (and many others too numerous to mention) did and displayed identical symptoms. All fixed with no great drama.

You and I have a different idea of what constitutes a drama - when you say FD breaking up, do you mean the big bearing (not so dramatic), or the gear set (fairly dramatic, not to mention expensive)?

 

[Pukmeister]

Probably just a small christmas tree of fine metallic wear swarf attached to the magnetic ABS speed sensor. Five minutes to fix with a Torx socket and a cleaning cloth and all is fixed.

If there is more going on than some fine wear swarf, thats another matter.

 

[Wapping]

He is soaking everything in WD40 as he thinks it's a water problem... But in all probablity it's an internal mechanical / electrical signal problem. So the WD40 is / was doing nothing at all.

It was no great drama as it was fixed PDQ by BuMW.

Had I of been in the middle of the Sahara with no spares or tools it may have been different. But, I wasn't. I was in leafy Kent.

So, once I established that the brakes did work (despite very clear electronic warning messages to the contrary) I trundled home via the Blackwall Tunnel to civilsed London and all was well. Of course the final drive could have crunched up, locking the back wheel (or simply failed to leave me free-wheeling) but it didn't.

 

[nedflanders]

Mine did the same, changed the battery and all was well, did clean the ABS sensor first but I''ve always gone for the cheap fix and work from there, glad I didn't convince myself the final drive was about to implode

 

[piebaps]

I had these symptoms too. Final drive replaced under warranty and all was well in the world again.

 

[Wapping]

Mine did the same, changed the battery and all was well, did clean the ABS sensor first but I''ve always gone for the cheap fix and work from there, glad I didn't convince myself the final drive was about to implode

I couldn't agree more. Cheap and simple first.

However, I am glad I didn't go to the expense of buying a new battery (I don't have a spare one) only to discover the final drive was shot. BuMW coughed for the full drive repair, I would have had to have shelled out for the battery and then tried to reclaim the money back from BuMW under the OM warranty. As everything else functioned (lights, horn, starter motor etc. etc.) the battery was probably the last place I would have looked, I confess.

The final drive is easy to check, for free. Put the bike on the center stand, in neutral. Rotate the rear wheel by hand. You should (but you don't want to) hear an excessive grinding noise.

 

[sketty]

Crikey, I am on my third final drive as it is. Took it for a service at the main dealer,just before the warranty ran out. That was 20,000 kilometers back. They said the final drive was within limits (what ever that is) Does have a bit of a growl. The final drive never leaked any oil,before it went bang. The second one did though.

Thanks.......

 

[MattW]

Crikey, I am on my third final drive as it is. Took it for a service at the main dealer,just before the warranty ran out. That was 20,000 kilometers back. They said the final drive was within limits (what ever that is) Does have a bit of a growl. The final drive never leaked any oil,before it went bang. The second one did though.

Thanks.......

Third final drive what are 1200 FD's made of? Cheese?

If it has a growl it has a bearing on its way out and I'd fix it / get it fixed sooner rather than later. At the moment, it's probably just a bearing, but leave it long enough and the gearset / housing will eat itself (if it's coming out of your pocket - big money). This fits well with what others have said regarding your ABS sensor being full of the crud resulting from the slow death of your FD. Lack of an oil leak is not a reliable indicator of FD health - some only start to leak right at the end.

Not sure what sort of a DIY job it is on a 12 as the FD design is very different to the 11xx's - on an 11xx the 'big bearing' change is doable quite easily - anything more requires a bit more skill and shimming etc.

 

[nedflanders]

I couldn't agree more. Cheap and simple first.

However, I am glad I didn't go to the expense of buying a new battery (I don't have a spare one) only to discover the final drive was shot. BuMW coughed for the full drive repair, I would have had to have shelled out for the battery and then tried to reclaim the money back from BuMW under the OM warranty. As everything else functioned (lights, horn, starter motor etc. etc.) the battery was probably the last place I would have looked, I confess.

The final drive is easy to check, for free. Put the bike on the center stand, in neutral. Rotate the rear wheel by hand. You should (but you don't want to) hear an excessive grinding noise.

Only went for the battery because I knew it was on it's way out as the intercom kept killing it before I rewired it properly

 

[Wapping]

Only went for the battery because I knew it was on it's way out as the intercom kept killing it before I rewired it properly

Aha, not any problem(s) I had been sufferring from.

Original battery still in tiptop form (touch wood) after 32k miles. Final drive, less so, having been rebuilt at 22k.

 

[sketty]

Well final drive is OK. Water had got into the top plug.No bits in the FD oil. I was mistaken about the growl. Just getting paronoid about the FD thats all.

Thanks .............Chris Jones

 

[Wapping]

All's well that ends well.

Ironic to have a water problem during Australia's drought.

 

[MattW]

Assumption, the mother of all feck ups

Sounds like nothing of the sort.

Look at your final drive. It is probably breaking up. The break up effects the speed sensor, housed behind the rear wheel, which in turn buggers the display up. The bike gets confusing messages. It knows it is going forward, but the speed sensor of the rear wheel reads zero, so the ABS thinks it is all up the Swannie..... The ABS brake failure light is flashing like a demon but the brakes still work... The Devil himself has invaded the machine.....I am going forward at a steady 80 kph but the speedo goes from zero to 120 and anywhere in between....

Mine (and many others too numerous to mention) did and displayed identical symptoms. All fixed with no great drama.

Why does it only do it in heavy rain then?

Coincidence.

The OP simply said he was riding in a tropical storm.... It appears to have been one journey (or a few), interspaced by downpours of biblical proportions. Mine, identical in all bar weather, happened on an overcast day in April....

So as suggested by me and others, it was water related after all. Listening to the 'sages' on here would have had the OP swapping out his final drive for an electrical fault - Occam's razor.

Glad you got sorted sketty

 

[Ali-bear]

Aye, glad you got it sorted

Glad its not your FD