Problem solved!

[quazi-moto]

Welp, I got my relays from Dan and replaced the faulty bugger with a new sealed relay. As was noted in another thread I must have discharged the battery while (whilst) riding home sans headlight. I contacted Deltran's tech dept. via e-mail and they said that its okay to use the Battery Tender provided that the battery terminal voltage is above 7.0 volts. Mine was reading 11.6 volts when I pulled it out of the bike so I charged it up overnight on the (SuperSmart) battery tender. The tech person stated that ideally I should be using the Battery Tender Plus, but that the SuperSmart would still work okay. Well, indeed it did! I let it charge for 24 hours and it wasn't into the float charge mode yet, but a quick check with my multimeter showed 12.9 volts so I slapped the Odyssey back in the LeMans. She fired right up with the new relay installed. I went for a 50 mile jaunt and all is well. At least so far anyway. Last week I thought I had smoked a second relay, but apparently that's not the case and only one relay turned out to be bad. I ran the battery flat on the journey back home from New York and that's why the bike crapped out a second time. I was going to install a complete set of five new sealed GEI relays, but one of them was cycling the fuel pump on and off like it was stuck or something. That was a little bizarre to say the least so I ended up using four of the older GEI relays and one new sealed unit. That's all folks!

[Guest ratchethack]

Outstanding recovery, QM!

 

I see that you've come around again to faith in Dan's GEI relays.

 

Critical Q's: Please forgive if you've covered this in a previous post, but you haven't positively ID'd the faulty relay here! Was it a GEI? In which socket did it fail?

 

Enquiring minds (well, you know) . . .

[waspp]

Excellent! its always good to know a problem has been solved.

[dlaing]

Assuming it was the starter relay, or the headlight relay, you might seriously consider dedicated relays and a new wire harnass for the headlight. (EDIT I re-read your original problem and the relay that went bad was probably the ECU or injector relay...in any case it is a good modification to do)

Gary Cheek helped me re-wire with dedicated wiring and relays.

Before

After

Re-wiring with dedicated relays takes big load off of the starter and headlight relay and much of the harnass.

Eastern Beaver sells pre-made harnasses of excellent quality:

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Home/Main/Pro...ts/h4_kits.html

If you do a search in nuts and bolts for "harnass" you should find Gary Cheek's and others' headlight re-wiring diagrams.

[quazi-moto]

It was probably the injector relay I would guess. When it died the first time I thought that the My15M was cooked, but turning the key to the on position powered the ECU & Optimiser. The LCD display on the Optimiser was showing normal readings. I would suspect that it was the injector relay. I didn't lose the headlight until I put the faulty relay in that position. I've never had a problem with the starter aside from slow cranking, but now that the Odyssey is all juiced up it cranks right over. While I was momentarily stranded at the roadside the starter would still crank, but the engine would not start due to the bad relay. I juggled some of the relays around unaware of which position performed whatever function in the circuit. In a few spots the starter would not even crank so I'm guessing that the start position (fairly obvious) and the neutral position require a good relay for cranking. Anyhow since this was the first reported failure of a GEI relay I'm going to stick with these relays for a while, but in the future I'll always keep a spare (or two) on hand while out on the road. I might send the bad one back to Dan if he wants to have a look at it. I'll have to write him about that. Is the fuel pump incorporated into the injector circuit or ECU? One of the new sealed relays seemed a little flaky and in the key on position the fuel pump and ECU were cycling on and off almost as if the new relay was spazzing out or something. That was pretty odd so I yanked 'em all, but the start relay and put the old GEI's back in the other four positions. I think its time for a ride!

[dlaing]

Is the fuel pump incorporated into the injector circuit or ECU?

The injector circuit.

Considering one GEI got toasted and another relay did some weird cycling of the injector pump, you may be having problems with the pump.

A pinched fuel line, a clogged fuel filter, a bad electrical connection to the fuel pump, or a bad fuel pump(unlikely) could have caused the blown relay and could be causing the cycling problem. It may be a good idea to narrow down which of the new relays is causing the cycling problem.

And then look to other causes of the relay blowing....or just ride and bring spare fuses and relays and it may never happen again

But I think the chance of you getting two bad GEIs is pretty unlikely, and suspect a current load is pushing it over the edge.

I hope it is not the ECU.

You might try testing the amperage at the ECU and Injector fuses.

The ECU or Injection fuse SHOULD blow before the corresponding relay gets toasted, which makes it all the more perplexing, and leads back to you just having bad luck with the relays...

[Guest ratchethack]

Now this is just me, but I don't think there's enough information here to conclude with any degree of confidence that any particular relay got "toasted".

 

If the GEI is suspect, I'd by all means take advantage of Dan (The Guzzi Relay Man) Prunuske's extraordinarily uncommon active interest in quality control -- not to mention his lifetime product guarrantee -- by having him check it before possibly jumping to conclusions!

 

BAA, TJM, & YMMV

 

QM, please advise on any POSITIVE ID of a bad relay by Dan, or other root cause!

[dlaing]

Now this is just me, but I don't think there's enough information here to conclude with any degree of confidence that any particular relay got "toasted".

I trust Quasi-Moto's diagnostic skills.

I trust that the GEI relay that he pulled from the bunch, is at least marginalized in its ability to perform its duty.

I went through the same issue with the Bosch relays that Dan P. used to sell.

I don't recall if I ever sent him any of the Bosch that went bad, I remember him showing interest...But the fix was clearly the GEI relay. Rewiring the lighting, also could have been THE fix.

But I think Quasi should test all the relays.

I don't doubt that all the relays would work fine in another V11.

[Guest ratchethack]

Um, please, please help me. [sigh] How do the following statements possibly line up?!

It was probably the injector relay I would guess.

. . .

One of the new sealed relays seemed a little flaky and in the key on position the fuel pump and ECU were cycling on and off almost as if the new relay was spazzing out or something.

Whereupon we observe the following statement followed by "trust" and conclusion?!

I trust Quasi-Moto's diagnostic skills.

I trust that the GEI relay that he pulled from the bunch, is at least marginalized in its ability to perform its duty.

-- And then there's this one. Following the above, it's a real doozy:

I don't doubt that all the relays would work fine in another V11.

Help me, Mr. Wizard!

 

Drizzel, drazzel, drozzel, drone. Time for ZIS VON to come home!

[dlaing]

Um, please, please help me. [sigh] How do the following statements possibly line up?!

 

Whereupon we observe the following statement followed by "trust" and conclusion?!

 

-- And then there's this one. Following the above, it's a real doozy:

 

Help me, Mr. Wizard!

 

Drizzel, drazzel, drozzel, drone. Time for ZIS VON to come home!

I have no doubt that he isolated the bad relay.

I also, have little doubt that lost track of where it originated... a result of not the best diagnostic technique, but par for the course(and nobody told him to number them before rotating them).

I also suspect that the relay he pulled from service is not totally toasted, but rather marginalized, and thus it could possibly work fine in a bike that is getting more juice to activate the relay.

What evidence do you have to suggest that the relay is perfectly fine, when he clearly indicated that replacing it fixed the problem?

There is the possibility that the problem is intermittent and that when he replaced it, it coincidentally or miraculously started working again, but other than that being the case, I think my analysis is spot on

[Guest ratchethack]

I think my analysis is spot on

Well, of course you do , Dave!

 

Unfortunately, your logic holds about as much water as Big Mama Gianfranconi's favorite pasta collander at Big Mama's Mia Bella Trattoria on Lake Como. Now I make no claims of being an electrical whiz, as I've stated many times. But I do know my way around troubleshooting basic stuff with a DVM quite well, having taken enough College Physics for a Minor and one electronics engineering class at graduate level (UCSD), and I fully understand and appreciate that troubleshooting simple switching circuits is 100% logic . In fact, basic electronic circuits have been traditionally referred to by electronics engineers as logic circuits . I reckon this ain't an accident! IIRC, electrical engineers who use relays as the basis for electronic switching (like Dan The Guzzi Relay Man P.) refer to complex relay circuits as ladder logic .

 

Put it this way -- if you can't master at least the basics of simple logic, and think logically , you can't diagnose your way out of much of anything with electronic circuitry. It's as futile as bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight. . .

What evidence do you have to suggest that the relay is perfectly fine?

If you read what I posted and look at it logically , Dave, I think you'll find that I didn't make anything like a statement that "the relay is perfectly fine"!

 

What I posted was,

Now this is just me, but I don't think there's enough information here to conclude with any degree of confidence that any particular relay got "toasted".

Now does that actually sound to YOU anything like I said, "the relay is perfectly fine", Dave?

 

Do you see a thuddingly clear, basic, LOGICAL difference between the two?

 

OMG I got sucked into another dead-ender. I'm ashamed of myself now. I'm all done here. But then, I was all done here before I started this post, wasn't I?

[dlaing]

If you read what I posted and look at it logically , Dave, I think you'll find that I didn't make anything like a statement that "the relay is perfectly fine"!

 

What I posted was,

 

Now does that sound to YOU anything like I said, "the relay is perfectly fine", Dave?

 

Do you see a thuddingly clear, basic, LOGICAL difference between the two?

 

OMG I got sucked into another dead-ender. I'm ashamed of myself now. I'm all done here. But then, I was all done here before I started this post, wasn't I?

Oh good, so you agree with me again. Glad I could pull the wool from over your eyes

By the way, did you know that you can set your toaster to toast the bread to many different shades?

Relays can also get toasted to varying shades

 

Unfortunately, your logic holds about as much water as Big Mama Gianfranconi's favorite pasta collander at Big Mama's Mia Bella Trattoria on Lake Como.

Hey Raz, O defender of Ratchet, (assuming you are reading this) do you really think this behavior could not be construed as irritating?

Antonio was spot on but I don't want to know what he thinks about me

[quazi-moto]

There's no need to quarrel over a lousy relay lads. I'm sending the faulty one back to Dan so he can make a determination on the status of the relay.

 

BTW: My battery tender charged Odyssey is still reading 13.0 volts at the terminals.

[raz]

Hey Raz, O defender of Ratchet, (assuming you are reading this) do you really think this behavior could not be construed as irritating?

Antonio was spot on but I don't want to know what he thinks about me

I never said that. I did say Antonio was right I also said one can learn to ignore that parts of Ratchets Rambling. Is that defending? Maybe it's diplomacy.

[dlaing]

Maybe it's diplomacy.

Are you sure you are not American or British