Blowing F7 intermittently
I have Spyder 104 after having ridden #610 for a little over 40K. The bike is old but I still like it. But with age comes out of the norm problems. I had to get rid of #610 because it had the dreaded EPS problem that I was convinced was going to kill me. Three months after I sold it BRP came out with a fix I could believe I so I tried to buy 61o but no dice.
Recently on a 2,000 mile trip my always dependable Spyder went into limp mode, not once but twice. First I would get a DPS warning and go into limp mode. This had been happening every year or two and I could always reset it. This time not. I could not have been further from help. Las Vegas was 250 miles in my rear view and Reno was about 200 miles up ahead. I limped about 75 miles and then got towed 130 miles to Michaels Reno Powersports.
They were expecting me and got right on it. The steering angle sensor was a tad askew and could have been that way since the bike was built. I had just had the front tires changed and the front end realigned so that may have precipitated the problem occurring and staying. In any case, with a slight adjustment I was back on my way to California.
Once reaching CA, the bike went into limp mode again. I took it to Cycle Specialties in Modesto, Ca and they determined that F7 was blown but could not figure out why. It would also blow every time I used the brake. They gave me a handful of fuses and sent me on my way.
I drove 350 miles, used the brake to stop for the night, went into limp, changed the fuse. The next day I drove 300 miles, used the brake at my house and went into limp. But now it was in my garage where I could work on it.
After replacing the fuse I noticed that the right brake light would only activate intermittently. So I changed both of the brake light bulbs, something I generally do every two years and life was good. Everything was fine. For four months.
Leaving for a group ride, something really new for me as I am the Recluze, I had the very same problem. I changed the fuse and took and everything was back to normal. This is not acceptable so I took it into Moto Zoo in St George to have them work on it. After 3 days they gave up as they could not duplicate the problem.
I got it home and decided I would find what was wrong or just rewire the circuit and put in new brake light receptacles. After having a look at everything I could, I noticed that the license plate light was out. (This is very hard to discern in day light and I rarely ride at night.)
I looked at the bulb and it looked someone had hit it with a hammer. Strange, but still not convincing as the cause of the problem. So I changed it (duh) and then I looked at the plastic cover that covers it. The bulb had , at some point, melted almost through the plastic indicating at some point that little sucker was drawing a lot of current.
So my theory is that the license plate bulb was in some sort of self destruct mode for some time. When the extra current needed to activate the brake lights was applied, it was too much for f7. Sometimes. Or theory #2 is that all of the debris from the license plate bulb was traveling around and getting across the terminals on an intermittent basis.
I will get back on the road and let you know if either of those two things pan out. If you see me doing 45 mph out in the desert, you will know.
