Thank you for reading my post about my eletrical issue. My older 97' vfr is having some gauge/headlight/turn indicator issues. My highbeam indicator is always on when the highbeams are off and off when they are on. My instrument panel lights are not working at all and my blinker indicators are always on. I checked all the fuses, I even have a spare electrical harness/RR/ECM and completed the replacement last night but that didn't fix the issue at all.
I still do not have a mutlimeter and I know I need to get one but can any of you think of what might be wrong?
If you had replaced the mian wirting harness with one you know is good, It could be the actual circuit board behind the instument panel that is damaged. I heard that sometimes the printed circuits on the board(s) will sometimes break down through corrosion or fatigue and some connections can be lost. IIRC, some owners had posted threads in this forum showing how the printed board can be repaired sometimes with wire jumpers and solder. Not really a problem unique to the 4th gen, but a general "old bike" problem. A lot of 4th gens are approaching 20 years old. Having the bike parked outside for long periods also does not help as corosion also attacks the electrical system after a while.
Thanks for the info everyone. I need to play around with the circuit board and figure out what is going on. Funny thing is that one time when this started I punched the instrument panel and it fixed the issue for a little.
Funny thing is that one time when this started I punched the instrument panel and it fixed the issue for a little.
As the Mythbusters say - "Well there's yer prahblem!". Your instrument cluster wiring is dodgy, simple as that. Could be bad grounds, corrosion creating an unintended ground circuit or power feed where there shouldn't be one, etc. You'll probably spot it as soon as you crack the thing open.
Holy cow the instrument panel computer layer thing is oxidized in several places! Should there be solder points with uncoated wire going from brass contact to brass contact? I have 3 of those! I am shocked it lasted that long and I do not believe I can repair the oxidized parts unless I use some metal cleaner on it. Where can I get a replacement part? I checked online and the computer layer is the one piece that is not on the diagram with a number! Any help would be great and I will try to get a picture of computer layer up so you can see how bad it is.
You can give it a shot and try to repair it, but it sounds like it could be pretty bad (Can you post up pics of the damaged circuit board for us to see?). unless you're experienced enough to deal with electrical repairs, doing your own repairs on such a thing can be tricky and even dangerous as not getting it right can cause an electical short and worse, fire. Keep the option open to just find a replacement insturment panel from a salvage company that deals with motorcycles so it can be just mostly a plug and play repair instead. Not sure if you can even order the parts new from Honda anymore as the bike is way beyond the 10 model year limit that Honda stock spare parts for.
You can give it a shot and try to repair it, but it sounds like it could be pretty bad (Can you post up pics of the damaged circuit board for us to see?). unless you're experienced enough to deal with electrical repairs, doing your own repairs on such a thing can be tricky and even dangerous as not getting it right can cause an electical short and worse, fire. Keep the option open to just find a replacement insturment panel from a salvage company that deals with motorcycles so it can be just mostly a plug and play repair instead. Not sure if you can even order the parts new from Honda anymore as the bike is way beyond the 10 model year limit that Honda stock spare parts for.
Beck 95 VFR
I actually bought a replacement on Ebay and it resolved all the issues. Here is a picture of the old computer layer.
I have a stock set of guages from my 4th Gen. I repalced them with gauges from a CBR 1000RR, so I don't need them anymore, let me know if you're interested.
End of thread · 10 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 18 Feb 2013