Fixed my speedo... but it's a long story!
Last week I tried starting my 2006 R3Classic and it gave me the familiar 'nearly dead battery': turn & click, click, click... I had been noticing the battery becoming a bit weak lately but I thought, ok, let me turn the headlights off and give it one more shot, maybe I can still ride. I installed an in-line headline kill switch just for these instances. After all, those two bunsen burners suck some major juice!
Well, it really didn't help and did the same thing except I began to smell something burning! Crap!!
I shut everything down and popped the seat off only to find that my negative battery post had melted and there were lead splatters on top of my voltage rectifier. The smell was the corner of the battery melting!!
I came to realize the battery cable had worked itself loose causing the weak connection and somehow must have been arcing enough to melt the lead post!!!
So... I cleaned it all up, check the battery which still showed to have juice, charged it, drilled a hole in the side of the remaining part of the post, fabricated an "L" angle clip and re-connected the ground cable to the new post clip. She fired right up and was just fine!... well, that is until I saw my odometer. It read 3 miles total. WTH!!
I messed with the trip meters, reset knob, ignition switch, all to no avail, I had lost my odometer. So I took it for a ride to see if it would rack up miles and found out the speedo was fried too! Man I was pissed!
After reading any and every post about R3 speedo's I came to realize they are not the most reliable units but that there was no real trend. Some had bad speed sensors, others ECU's, and most just replaced the speedo's. No help.
I'm not one to back down from a challenge and checked all systems starting from the speed sensor, wiring, connectors, ECU plugs, all the way to the speedo. I found nothing.
Last ditch I took the speedo off and began disassembly. As many of you probably know, it's a sealed unit where the glass trim ring is crimped on the assembly line. I pried the edges up on about 1/4 of the ring to minimize damage and wedged it off to find the dual circuit boards inside. Upon inspection all seemed to be in order. No burnt diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc. All solder joints looked solid. So what now??
I reconnected the speedo to the bike and switched it on - BAM! the odometer revealed 18655 miles!!!!
I was super duper pumped. Only thing is, I don't know what happened. I didn't fix anything!
So I proceeded to put the speedo back together again and just about ruined it when pressing the trim ring back on the body. I was wedging the plastic a bit to get it under the lip of the ring when the plastic suddenly gave way and I put a small hole in it upon entry and another on the other side where my screwdriver exited the housing!! DAAMMMITT!
Luckily no other damage, so I covered the holes with aluminum speed tape and continued reassembly.
All back together again, mounted, and tested. She reads the correct milage and the needle shows speed again.
All I have to do now is check it against my GPS for accuracy. I corrected it by -5.9% with TuneECU but found it still was a few mph off at highway speeds. Before I reassembled the speedo I checked where the needle would zero itself and found I could push it back a click or two. It now sets itself just under 0 by about 1/16" after it does it start-up swing. I'm hoping this will correct the slight innacuracy. We'll see!
Sorry for the long story but maybe someone can gain from my experience. I was kind of disappointed not to have other 'happy ending' stories to read on the forums!
