searched around but couldnt find what i was looking for. a couple months ago my r/r went bad (not suprising) and i replaced it with an aftermarket (not oem, although also not MOSFET) and everythings been fine since. today i was out in mullholland riding and on the way back i noticed that my speedometer/millage was shutting on and off. Most noticably when i shifted gears, but also randmoly while riding to. My tach and all other lights/ temp. remained working and not flikering off. i remember when my R/R went bad, the first thing to go was my whole dash before the bike shut off. so is whats going on right now related to my R/R, or a bad connection? or a bad circuit in the dash? not sure

 

any help is appreciated sp thankk you! also i tested the battery and it seems to be fine. not sure what to look at next

 

Test the battery voltage when the bike is off, when it's idling, and when you rev it up (4-5k rmp or so). That may give you a better idea if the R/R is under or over charging. Check connection to the R/R and any ground wires that you can find.

 

Sounds like the speed sensor

 

Also maby a fuse ....had that issue on my old 99 hawk

 

now i just took a little ride around the block and it didnt do it at all. not sure whats going on. i guess its gonna take some time to see if it happens again

 

okay so went for another ride and it was okay for a litle then it started flickering again (just the speedo and millage display) not sure what is going on here or why

 

Have you checked the voltage yet? If you replaced a broken R/R with a new shunt based one, your chances of it being bad again are pretty high, for a couple of reasons.

1) An r/r failure is often caused by bad connections making the resistance go up, causing the r/r to heat up (making it go bad quickly). If you had poor connections before- old terminals exposed to the elements, loose or corroded grounds, etc. - and didn't fix them, they could have fried your new r/r as well.

2) If your first r/r burnt any wiring/plugs (from the high resistance), you now have an even worse case than before.

3) A non-OEM shunt based r/r is pretty low on the list in terms of failure resistance. The only thing worse is a used non-OEM shunt based one.

A mosfet based r/r, even a used one, is much more resistant to failure (although the cause of one dying very quickly should still be addressed)


All that being said, it may not be the R/R, I only bring it up because of the high probability that it is still involved in causing you problems. It could be the speed sensor as suggested, could be just damaged from your last one going out, could be a poor connection, or something else entirely! Good luck in diagnosing- I imagine if you could get a resistance measurement on the wires while you're riding you would know a lot more (at least whether it's in the sensor or gauges).

 

I gotta call foul jscobey, you cant come on, ask questions, get solutions, then refuse to do them, then keep posting.

Now march out there & do some voltage testing like seven said, or you really dont want to solve the problem

 

smokinjoe73,

did the voltage testing using the service manual (prior to reposting) and its reading all normal as per the manual. i tested it at the speedo itself, the speed sensor while rolling the rear wheel, checked the connections, no open circuits or anything. out riding (again) and i stopped my bike. upon attempting to start it, i was hitting the starter and nothing, not the sound of a dead battery, no dimming dash lights, absolutley nothing. after inspecting the bike to make sure i was forgetting something dumb like the kill switch or something, i tried to start it one more time, and BOOM it started and all the way home, about a 30 min ride, the speedo/millage lcd worked perfect. not one flicker. so as previously stated i guess time will tell whats going on.

 

Ok good, your back in the club. Did you clean all your battery connections and ground at the RR? I have seen those cause this.

 

Sometimes I wonder... If you put the word "electrical" in the title thread, does it mean you can leave common sense behind as you enter?

You are all ignoring the obvious clues... The problem is intermittent... Electrical problems that are intermittent in this way are almost never really electrical, but mechanical... IE, faulty wire, connector whatever that's moving about...

The only way it can be R/R related, is if it's consistent with temperature... Ie when the bike is hot it stops working... But so far that's not proven...

 

turns out tweety is correct! thanks. i had a look at my battery connections, and both + and - were pretty loose. when i last replaced my battery after my old R/R fried it, the bikes battery connectors mounted to the terminals a little differently than the old battery and dont sit flush on the terminals. i tightened them down and POOF, like some sort of voodoo magic from the gods of speed, the problem dissapeared. You would think if one's dash is going haywire, said person would check the battery conections before anything. but that would be too easy and of course making things complicated is my forte. regardless this fixed the problem. the best fixes are the free ones! thanks guys

 

Haha, I've never done anything like that ever . You should be ashamed. No one ever does things like chase a carb/fuel delivery issue for weeks because they re-routed a wiring harness to block off the entire airbox intake. Hell, there's a member on here (*cough*smokingjoe*cough*) who ended up swapping an entire motor because of an undiagnosed bad tank of gas...

 

Didn't I just say that 13hrs earlier?

Glad you got the voodoo sorted out.

 

u said it smokinjoe73, i looked at them and gave a "visual inspection" when i was checking my battery with the meter. they seemed fine, no corrosion or build up, rust, etc.. i just didnt wiggle them around to see if they were loose. i dont have much common sense as tweety said. on more than one occasion ive gone to start my bike and after it tries and tries to turn over, i get off in frustration and yell in my helmet. only to realize the kill switch is the culprit (and also the most obvious explenation)