Bad - Ignition Switch? Anntena?

[parkec]

Back in mid 2008 I had my antennae ring changed on my 2007 r1200r thanks to a BMW recall. Subsequently I had very random starting issues which resulted in my ignition also being replaced. The dealer’s theory was the ignition or wire was damaged during the antennae ring replacement.

Fast forward to now….my bike just turned 60,000 mile and I am experiencing random and intermittent electrical system failure. I’ll be riding along and all of a sudden engine dies and instrument goes dark. Turn the key, power up, start and go. Yesterday about 100 miles from home and about 20 miles form lunch lied again. This time it took several key turning exercises before I had power. I have noticed death seems to happen decelerating to a stop. Yesterday I notice a power blip say my dash die and restart without turning the key. I was going straight about 50 mph steady on small hills. I opted out of lunch and headed home with no problems. Today was a different story. 10 miles from home decelerating for a light died and would not start. Pushed it across 4 lanes, off the road into a parking no start. Tried on/off switch no start multiple times. Pulled key out, reversed key etc. Tried moving bars lock to lock no start. Then just before I was getting ready to pull the seat and check grounds – it powered and started. went home.



anybody have a similar exerience?
Ideas?
theory's?

[Anyname]

I had very much the same symptoms from a loose battery cable.

[dbrick]

I had very much the same symptoms from a loose battery cable.

Make sure you check both ends of both cables.

[parkec]

Thanks.

I know my cable at the battery are solid, and first in my 4 conncection battery terminal christmas tree.
Bike cable, Battery Tender, fuse block, moto lights.

I will exam both ends, disconect, clean, dielectic grease them, retighen, and cross my fingers.

[parkec]

Opps .. peeled the left/starter plastic off.. beside the obvious starter..where is the ground?


Thanks

[parkec]

Help. Please.

Have tank off and still cant find the bike/frame ground.
But
Every connection found tight.

So where is the ground?

[dbrick]

I don't know. I pulled the seat and looked. The (-) cable leaves the terminal and then turns front and enters a wiring loom next to the battery. I'd follow that loom until a big wire emerges and is bolted to something frame- or engine-like.

The wiring diagram in Haynes suggests that the insulation of this wire is brown and that it divides into three branches: one that is fastened directly to ground and might be a 1 mm wire, another of 2.5mm that runs to the ZFE (the Can-Bus central chassis controller), and a third also of 2.5mm that runs to the BMS-K (the Can-Bus engine controller). These wires are much larger than others on the bike, and ought to be findable.

[parkec]

Found THE ground.

If you are sitting on the the bike. Its on the engine case below the left rear corner of the alternator.

Unffortunately TIGHT.

So

Going to pull my battery connections. Clean. Dilectric. Tighten and vross my

[deilenberger]

I'd also suggest doing some wire wiggling. BMW has a bad habit of overtightening tie-wraps used to secure wiring. They should only be tight enough to hold the wire in the desired position. Unfortunately, the automatic tool used to pull up the tie-wraps apparently is way out of calibration, causing the too-tight tie-wraps to damage the wiring they're supposed to support. (Having experienced this problem on other BMWs - when I got mine, I spent some time clipping off every tie-wrap I could get to and replacing them with correctly snugged up ones. Most of the ones I snipped off were overtightened.)

These sort of random intermittent conditions are usually a clue to this behavior. I'd especially look at the wiring going from the ignition switch down under the tank. It's also possible the contacts on the ignition switch are dirty (this is a common problem on the early K-bricks), and disassembly is likely needed to clean them.

I am not a fan of dielectric grease in general.* It is "di" electric - meaning it's non-conductive. You don't need to add more resistance to any electrical connection.

It's only reasonable use IMHO was the way the older Japanese cars used it - they packed the connector housing for car wiring with it, but carefully avoided getting the grease on the actual connection. The grease packed in the housing kept water out. Not getting it on the contacts means there was still metal to metal contact without a barrier layer - so conductivity wasn't affected.

What you may want to try is a conductivity enhancer. I used Stablant-22, a horribly expensive fluid used to help improve the conductivity of metal to metal contacts and at the same time - improve the non-conductivity of plastic barriers between conductors. It's available from NAPA auto parts as "CE-1" (Contact-Enhancer 1), last I heard it was around $50 for 10cc's. Luckily - 10cc's is about a lifetime supply if used according to directions. I'm still using the 10cc's I bought about 20 years ago to solve a vexing electrical problem with a old BMW car. BMW has recommended it quite a few times in their service information bulletins (SIB) for automobiles. Dunno about bike SIB's - I haven't seen those.

Oh - the wiggle test? Bike idling, start wiggling wiring. If the bike stalls you've now determined something is wrong with what you wiggled, which should make it much easier to track down.

* = I know there will be people posting that they've used dielectric grease for centuries and it's always been good for them. Good for you. You have your opinion, I have mine, and I'm not changing mine. Feel free to do whatever you want with your bike. Lots of people have tried to change my mind, but I'll continue to avoid using dielectric grease (and yes - I do know of failures caused by dielectric grease, one of my K bikes was a good example - high resistance grounds caused by use of grease. Cleaning them and sanding the connectors to get clean metal to metal contact fixed a number of problems.)

[parkec]

Thank you All,

My engine off wiggling produced no obvious issues.
Next up will be engine on wiggle. With so much wiring under the tank this will be fun.

One pipe dream I am currently exploring is heat. My bike unfortunatley has been under cover in he florida elements since December 1st. (we inadvertantly sold our home](*,) ) The time line for this issue is almost identicle. My riding buddy is an x pilot/plane owner and gave me the hummidy airplane corrosion speach - so...I have heating pad on the telever on low, cover on bike, fuel tank in front of TV in man cave. (wifes out of town taking care of mom).

[gibbo111]

I had a similar issue on my 07 some years ago ,however it wasn't cutting out while mobile ,but lots of on/off with the key to get ignition. Under warranty they put in a new ignition barrel and no trouble since. A friend had similar intermittent problems with his 1150 rockster recently and was worn parts in the ignition barrel, that a clever mechanic fixed with a soldering iron, by beefing up some contacts.

[parkec]

Bike running wire wiggle test resulted in no results but the chicken bones and eye of newt might have. Just went to start bike voroom to life. Stalled it on take off. Now now power.!! BUT w helmet off and playing detective you can here noise in instrument cluster ehe you move key to and from on position but no dash lights no power to start. Opps bike just started off to dealer.

[parkec]

BMW mechanic was rushing to finish a new GT. Sooooo service manager suggested CANBUS finicky about batteries. Upon checking my battery is 5 years old. Bought a battery and scheduled an appointment for Thursday - 5 days from now.

[thepeacebullgrunt]

Interesting.... it sound like we have almost the same problem parkec
as I recently described on my "Weird dashboard booting..." post.
Except that my issues happened so far %99 when my bike was parked and never lead to being stuck with a dead bike on the side of the road... power come back automatically as it it was "a routine".

Mostly, I get only weird time lags in my computer booting & weird re-booting after it boots.

I am going to try finding this ground connection you mentioned near the alternator.

Also, like you my mechanic thought at first that it was a problem with the Antenna....

[parkec]

Hopefully Final Answer.

I replaced my battery last weekend because the local BMW Dealer BMW mechanic was up to his eye balls and my battery was old. 5 Yrs?

I road the bike home from the dealer last Saturday (12 Miles) w no problem. Yesterday almost a week later I commuted to work. All of 3 miles. Once again no problem.

Today we road.

My KSU 7am. my place. 30+/- miles later meetup at DD. at 8. Then off. btw temp at start 70 degrees and overcast. several hours later its lunch and ...52 degrees and drizzling. we were prepared for a little rain..but missed the cold front concept.. cacacacold. did i mention... I'm running near naked no bikini faring. and prepped for an 80 degree day.

At lunch I check the weather back home 125 miles or so south.. 73..its F'n 52 and drizzling here at lunch!

btw....no electrical/sudden death issues. at this point.

Aftere lunch off we go south..

Damn ,my buddy is still learning that GPS lies. Look up. Look Around. dont go north or east or west..if your destination is SOUTH!!!!!!!


60 miles south of lunch the rain/drizzle stops.. my lower back si wet..My Bmw garb is wicking..and damn its 60.............................

I'm home 10 hours later. damn.. its 72!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and dry. Gotta love Florida weather.

No electrical problems what so evr.. 328 miles.

damn I'm cold.. going to sit on a heating pad and drink tea. and watch the Tampa Bay Rays woop the Okland A's.

It seems to have been the battery. The Battery.

[thepeacebullgrunt]

Good news parkec!

I wrote earlier that I had some quite similar issues going on with my bike and my battery is 2 or 3 yrs old but I am riding everyday constantly sucking on it... 70 to 100 miles a day.

You had weird dashboard boots & reboots if I remember well so me as well...
I am going try a new battery just to see how it feel.

Cheers!

[wabeers]

I'm also having the problem with a blank screen and about 10 - 15 seconds before the screen turns on and the bike will start. What is most disturbing is that the screen will go blank while I'm riding - sometimes going 60 MPH. It happened at night and the headlight went off as well as the computer display and the engine shut down. I was able to get it started before it came to a stop. This has happened several times but it always started back up before coming to a complete stop. This was happening with a 4 year old battery and then I replaced the battery with a glass mat battery and it is still occurring.

Then antenna ring was replaced on one of the earlier recalls, so that is probably not the cause of the problem. Any other ideas on what could be causing the random shutting off of the electrics?

Thanks for any advice.

[deilenberger]

Bill, re-read the posts above. Most of the potential culprits have been identified and diagnostics described.

FWIW - the antenna ring does absolutely NOTHING once the engine starts. It's actually a "start inhibit" sort of deal - you could unplug it while the engine is running and it would keep on happily running, but won't restart until it got plugged back in.

Your symptoms point to loss of system voltage (if you have a GS-911 I'd suggest reading codes, you'll probably find "Terminal 15 undervoltage" errors reported.) What is your battery voltage at the terminals with the bike off? What is it with the bike running? Start with simple diagnostics - checking grounds, voltages, etc..

[wabeers]

Don - Thanks for the help - here are the voltage readings from my 2008 R1200R
Ignition turned off - 12.48 volts
Bike running - 14.20 volts

I also noticed that when I turn the key on and the computer display lights up the and the tach and speedometer have cycled through the following lights are lit - Red ABS light + Orange Triangle with an ! + Red Battery light
the Orange Triangle light goes out after a couple of seconds leaving the Red ABS + Red Battery lights on - the Red Battery light goes off only after I start the bike and about 2 seconds have gone by.
The Red ABS light stays on until after I ride the bike for a couple of feet which is normal.

I tried using the black plastic backup ignition key and the same thing problem is there. Also sometimes when I turn the key on and the computer screen comes on it will go blank again before I can start the bike.
Unfortunately it is an intermittent failure, so the dealer wants me to wait until it is a solid failure before I bring it to their shop.

Do you think the CAN-BUS could be the cause of the problem?

Thanks again for your help.

Bill

[deilenberger]

Bill - where are you measuring the voltage? The lights are normal - they light up before engine startup to show you the bulbs are still good (probably LEDs now - but I guess old habits die hard..) And the orange triangle light should go out, the battery light goes out after a few seconds, and the red ABS light is behaving normally (it won't go out until the systems sees the wheels turning and can tell that they are turning.)

So all that looks fine.

Leaves the question - where are you measuring the voltage?

Interesting measurements to me would be:

- Big cable on the starter to ground as you go to try to start it and it doesn't start. If this drops then chances are the cable is bad or one of the connectors is loose (that cable goes right to the battery + terminal and there is no fuse circuit in it) OR the battery has a cracked internal connector that will pass small currents but has problems when a large current draw is called for (the starter.) To check that - the + terminal and ground - and see what the reading is when it won't crank. Since you've replaced the battery, that is unlikely, but worth checking when all else fails.

System voltage - measured with a GS-911 - BMW loves to call this "Terminal 15" (I think that dates back to 2002i car days.) And see what that does when it won't start. You should see > 12.4V (preferably 12.6V and maybe 12.8V) There is also a pin on the diagnostics connector you could monitor that will show the system voltage. Let me look at my diagram... Finally found it - check the voltage on the green wire to ground. Again - when the engine fails to start.

Your question on "Can-Bus" (properly named CAN-BUSS (as in a computer communications "BUSS"):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as the boogyman "CAN-BUS" - it is a communications system between modules/devices on the bike. I have yet to hear a problem accurately blamed on the "Can-Bus" that wasn't user caused by bridging something across it that disturbed the communications stream. It seems about bulletproof in my experience - it's been used in cars for a LONG time and you just don't hear people blaming problems on it.

Some people do lump the ZFE circuit protection functions under "CAN-BUS" - which is NOT accurate. The ZFE is what turns things on and off in response to inputs from switches and controls on the bike. It also uses the ZFE to turn things on and off - like lights. The light switch tells the ZFE - turn this on - and the ZFE does. More complex then old switched circuits to understand, but physically much simpler, lighter and electrically more reliable IMHO. If you compare the wiring on a late model 1150 bike and the 1200 series bike you'll see what I mean. No more huge bundles of wire running this way and that.

The ZFE also protects circuits using an the same electronic device that shuts off the voltage to a circuit if the monitoring circuit that controls it determines something is out of bounds.

It may use CAN-BUS to communicate between the ZFE and a device to look for problems, but most often it's a simple current-draw measurement of the circuit.

No current drawn on a bulb means it's blown (and the warning light gets turned on), excessive current draw means something is shorted in some way (and the circuit gets turned off, only until the next startup when it checks to see if the condition is still present, if it has been fixed - the circuit is turned on normally.) Think of that function as automatic circuit breakers and I think you'll get closer to what it's actually doing.

FWIW - I also have yet to have heard of a ZFE or ECU failure on the R1200 series bikes. The electronics are quite reliable if not mucked about with. Problems start happening when people add devices that overload circuits (or underload them - making the ZFE think something isn't right). Best way to avoid that is with a relay controlled fuse block powered right off the battery that turns on when the bike starts. That will isolate the added loads back to the rather primitive (but easily understandable) fused circuit mode.

BTW - the reason the dealer wants it to fail entirely before checking it out - most mechanics are awful with electronics. The exception is rare on that. They rely on computerized tests to hope to find the cause, and if the cause isn't present when they hook it up, it can't be found by the computer. They are rarely good on electronics diagnostics thinking because that isn't what they were trained in. It's plug in the computer, see what part the computer thinks should be replaced, replace it, send the customer home with a lighter wallet and hope that was it. With electronics - it helps to have a background in electronics when troubleshooting.