Troublesome Speedo

Randombeat wrote: You might consider replacing it with an aftermarket unit? Most come with a pickup you mount to the wheel, bypassing your stock wiring problems.... However if your intentions are to keep the bike 100% stock, that's not an option...?

Yeah I'm looking at keeping it stock, unless this ends up being more of a headache than it's worth, which I rather doubt.

Stopped by a bike shop in town for help with this after coming up empty following wires. The guy gave me direction on how to fix the speedometer, and mentioned that it was cool that it was probably one of the first electric speedos. The problem according to him isn't anywhere near where I thought it was: at the hub of the front wheel is the speed sensor, a small hockey puck looking thing with a wire coming out of it. He said it probably needs cleaning with either grease from the bearing or perhaps metal particles got in there from the hub. The real trick to fixing it is that I need to lift the front tire about 2 inches in the air and remove the wheel and then get to the sensor to clean it. Sounds easy until you find that the exhaust runs right where you want to lift the bike up. Going to need to make a custom lift looks like....not fun. This is going to take some serious time as I'm already working 10 hour days. Right now I'm envisioning lifting the bike with a single hydraulic jack between the exhaust pipes while strapping the rear down like you would on a trailer so it doesn't tip over. I dunno. Really don't wanna take the exhaust off, as often in the past I've done that only to cause an exhaust leak on car engines.

You need to use the centerstand. What happens when you have a flat or need to change the tire?
Steve

swest wrote: You need to use the centerstand. What happens when you have a flat or need to change the tire?
Steve

+1

You do not need to use a lift. I just put a small bottle jack under the front of the engine with a small block of wood between the jack and oil pan to protect the pan. With that and the bike on the center stand I raise the front of the bike until the rear tire touches the pavement. That gives me plenty of room to remove the front tire. In fact, that's what I used when I removed the front forks to replace the steering stem bearings. It works great. Ed

650ed wrote:

swest wrote: You need to use the centerstand. What happens when you have a flat or need to change the tire?
Steve

+1

You do not need to use a lift. I just put a small bottle jack under the front of the engine with a small block of wood between the jack and oil pan to protect the pan. With that and the bike on the center stand I raise the front of the bike until the rear tire touches the pavement. That gives me plenty of room to remove the front tire. In fact, that's what I used when I removed the front forks to replace the steering stem bearings. It works great. Ed

I was thinking exactly along those lines except my safety concern is me accidentally nudging the bike and having it topple over on me. That makes sense though; using the centerstand and just basically tipping it on the rear tire and compressing the rear shocks. Thanks for the tip.

WTF
:ohmy:

Okay so big update, finally had time to work on this problem, and I have no freakin' idea of what to do. There is some grease around the sensor, but I don't know if the grease is supposed to be inside the sensor or not. There is a black seal in the picture below that is covered in grease. Is this seal supposed to keep grease out of the sensor or is it supposed to keep grease inside the sensor? I'll remind you again, this is an electric sensor. See photos below for reference.


This is what the sensor looked like right after I took it off.



This is the mating surface of the sensor on the front wheel hub.

You need to clean out the old grease and repack it with new grease.
Steve

swest wrote: You need to clean out the old grease and repack it with new grease.
Steve

Regular synthetic bearing grease should work for that? All I have is some Mobil 1 bearing grease. Thanks Steve!! I'll have to get on this in the morning.

What does your manual call for?
Steve

swest wrote: What does your manual call for?
Steve

The manual was pretty useless, just covered how to take the sensor off and back on. Nothing on servicing the sensor at all, you're just supposed to replace it I guess. I cleaned out as much original grease I could and put back in some of that Mobil 1 bearing grease, didn't pack it in though.

So I put it back together, and the problem persists...perhaps a bit worse. It changed, it used to favor the top point of the bouncing and hold it there for a moment before dropping down to bounce back again. Now it's consistently bouncing in an about a 5mph range, roughtly 15% lower than what the actual speed is (that % really hasn't changed). So this sucks, I really don't wanna get ripped off on a $110 used sensor on eBay. At this point though I think I don't have a choice. A dealer would charge me more than $110 for fixing it right?