'96 Vmax Wont Shutoff!!

[Miles Long]

A comment was made about "cutting the brown wire as-close as possible to the plug," but whenever I have had to do something electrical where I needed access to a specific wire by itself, I have been able to remove the wire from the connector block by using either a small straight-blade screwdriver or a thin shim type piece of flat stock, such as you can get from the hobby store or the s.s. pieces which come in a windshield replacement blade pkg. Sometimes you can just pull on the wire itself while using the shim, sometimes I have had to use a pr. of needle-nose pliers.

Yup, I hear ya, Mr. Medic. I had made this comment earlier on, when I was suggesting things for the original thread-starter to try. I was thinking along the lines that there was contact between the red and brown wire within the harness itself, so my thought was just to cut the original brown , and replace it.
In my particular case, this would have been an exercise in futility, since it was the harness connector itself that was at fault - not the wiring.
But I have to admit - prior to checking the connector, I thought about replacing the brown wire, and fiddled with trying to get the wire out of it. I couldn't see how this could be done, I figured it was a permanant lock-in arrangement . I will keep your tips in mind, if I find myself wanting to disconnect wires from connectors in the future.
I've got the offending little bitch (bad connector), on my workbench .
After I've finished doing the "shotgun" procedure (good time to do it, since I had to take off the airbox to get at the connector), I'm going to disect the connector, to see exactly why or how the two terminals were able to touch.
Might seem trivial, but I'll do anything to keep my mind off the current economic fiasco.
Thanks again! Miles

 

[Rhoy Carter]

Replacing the wiring harness id not that hard just a little time consuming

 

[06x6spdGTO]

Well it seems as that female connector is a problem on these bikes, I just ohmed mine out to find the exact same thing! I will try an get some pics and post up a fix it thread that way this can be a sticky for others to use

 

[alorio1]

Well it seems as that female connector is a problem on these bikes, I just ohmed mine out to find the exact same thing! I will try an get some pics and post up a fix it thread that way this can be a sticky for others to use

A sticky would be great, hopefully they will, good pics and info added may get it done. Happy to see you got it figured out without having to change wiring harness.......

 

[06x6spdGTO]

Well here goes the sticky!! To start with Ninjaneer's Ignition Rebuild thread to get you through the process of just removing the ingnition (STOP after you've reached STEP 8 on the instructions http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=17281).

Next: Look at the Female end of the connector (the end going to the wiring harness of the bike). If its melted or burned you've found the problem!! Will look something like this:

To test that this is the problem you can use an ohm meter to verify constant power across the brown and red wires. Or just cut the brown wire while your headlights/gauges are "ON" and I bet they go out!

Now Disconnect the BATTERY!!

To fix the problem you can either cut all the wires from both sides of the connector and splice/soder them together. Or you can cut off whats left of the burned side of the connector (Female) and use spade connectors from your hardware store to put them back according to wire color. This way you can always put on a new ignition switch if you have to with less hassel. I went with the second option!

So I started by fixing the problem that Yamaha started by leaving the brown and red wires entirely to close!! I swapped the Red and Blue wire locations on the male side (Ignition switch side) of the connector. To do this I used a dental pick and pushed the small brass tab "Down" on the spade and pulled on the wire to remove the spade. The end result should look like this:

This 2nd pic shows a clear view of the small tab located on the spade that you must depress to remove from the plastic case

And a few shots of what the finished product looks like after switching the red and blue locations.

Then cut all the wires on the female side of the connector. Next I used female spade connectors with one fully insulated female connector that I put onto the Brown wire for extra protection. :

Finally connect the female spades to the ignition switch (male) spade connectors matching blue to blue, red to red, and brown to brown. Reconnect the battery and verify that your problem is fixed and that your ignition switch is functioning as it should. Reassemble following Ninjaneer's instructions in reverse order and your FIXED!

 

[06x6spdGTO]

On a second note, If you have you air box off and can easily get to the connector swapping the red and blue wire locations on both the female and male side off the ignition connector would be a great idea so one wouldnt experience this same problem far from home. If you look at the female connector the wires are barely parted by a thin layer of plastic. These being the hottest Two wires in the harness it makes sense to space them as far away from each other as possible.