Fuse Box

[zore]

For those of you who have not yet replaced the fuse box, here is a little story for you that may make that happen.? I've been riding the XZR550RR ZE all weekend.? So I fire her up this morning and get ready to go to work.? I'm about 30 miles into my trip when she all of a sudden starts sputtering like she's out of gas.? I flick on reserve but that had no effect.? I get into a gas station and it stalls.? I fill her up and hit the key and vroom it runs fine.... for about half a mile when the engine and lights all cut out.? I push the through 2 lanes of traffic to get to the shoulder which is fun at 6:30 in the morning.? I flick the key and the lights are on.? I hit the starter and vroom, she's running GREAT.... for about half a mile where it died again.? This time I felt it was time to take a look.?

I remember thinking, "Man I wish I had a Phillips screw driver to tighten up the battery screws." and when I lift the seat, there it is, a big screw driver.? No wonder the seat was crooked.? I then check the main fuse by lifting off the fuse cover and promptly losing the main fuse somewere in the depths of the bike.? After 15 minutes of searching in dim morning light, I find it and stick in the holder.? I notice that he fuse was extremely lose so I take the fuse out and squeeze the holder a little.? As half the fuse holder broke off in my fingers, I relized this was a bad idea.? Because breaking the first half of the fuse holder off was so much fun, I decided I'd snap the second one off too.? I reach in my pocket for my duct tape and swiss army knife only to relize I left my MacGiver kit at home.? I think yanked the wire off and shoved it into the fuse holder.? This did the trick and I was on my way with no further issue.

Lesson learned?? Even a bike with only 2400 miles on it that has been garage kept all it's life is going to be crusty.? Replace the fuse boxes.

[crackerkorean]

Had the same problem. Turn signals were intermitent and I tried tightning up the fuse holder and snap. And on the way home from practicing riding two up with my wife the tach starts going crazy and so do the blinkers.

Per luckys web site I did the suggested upgrade of the fust box.
http://www.xz550.com/replmntparts.html
Scroll all the way down on the right.

I was going to solder the wires on but couldt get the coleman cold solder gun to work so I just crimped on some covered ends and was on my way again.

[Lucky]

imho, those cold solder guns are only suitable for fine electronics work...
also, the part # has changed for the fusebox (pepboys still sells them) but search for a recent post fot the new ## (unless it was among the files the hacker deleted)
--Lucky

[crackerkorean]

I wouldnt even use the cold solder gun for fine eletronics.

I refurbish vintage stereo equipment and would never go close to any of that stuff with one of those. Just my opinion.

Yea I forgot that it was the wrong part number but you tell them what your looking for and they can find the right part number.

[vavision]

The cold solder is useless. There's a reason you can buy it off tv for the remarkable price of $9.99. It's the "I admit that I'm an idiot" price.

I always keep a corded and butane soldering iron with my just in case, toolset in my jeep. The cord for when you have it (with the power invertor I generally do) and the butane for when that's not going to cut it. Most of the time I solder all my connections together unless I know that I'm going to want to remove something alot, in which case I go to my connector box.

The results of a real soldering job? BEEEEEautiful

[zore]

I'll just be crimping on a few blad fuses and calling it a day.

[crackerkorean]

Crimping worked for me just fine.

Luckily I wasnt the one who spent the money on the cold solder thing. Its my friends.