The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => BMW Technical Q&A, Primarily R65 => Topic started by: SCJJR65 on January 07, 2009, 09:28:16 AM
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I discovered the other morning while riding Britta to work that I had no turn signals or horn! Crap. :( Other than that, Britta rides fine and continues to soldier on for me.
The owner's manual didn't specify if both of these items share a fuse or not. Anyone know? I'm hoping it is just a fuse that has to be replaced. I sure can't afford to do anything else other that replace a fuse, with Pattimarie being laid off from her job last month.
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Last time this happened to me it was indeed one of the fuses - though it hadn't blown, it had managed to vibrate such that it wasn't making good contact due to some oxidation, etc on the fingers of the holder. Spinning it around a few times while on the side of the road restored functionality for the trip back to the garage. I cannot recall which fuse it was now, but there are only a couple there to choose from !
What was most coincidental about the whole thing was that the bike had JUST passed its safety inspection (Literally, I was pulling out of the motorcycle inspection place onto the highway and my turn signals would no longer work). At least it waited until AFTER the inspection to misbehave !
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On my RT besides this same fuse controls the instrument lighting as well.
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Last time this happened to me it was indeed one of the fuses - though it hadn't blown, it had managed to vibrate such that it wasn't making good contact due to some oxidation, etc on the fingers of the holder. Spinning it around a few times while on the side of the road restored functionality for the trip back to the garage. I cannot recall which fuse it was now, but there are only a couple there to choose from !
What was most coincidental about the whole thing was that the bike had JUST passed its safety inspection (Literally, I was pulling out of the motorcycle inspection place onto the highway and my turn signals would no longer work). At least it waited until AFTER the inspection to misbehave !
Ditto my experience, too. I used some 400 grit to sand the oxidation off both ends of the ceramic and metal OEM fuses - plus the metal "fingers" that hold 'em. Used a bit of dilectric grease for reinstall. Have finally located a correct sized plastic box to fab a new fuse holder assembly for both the R65s that will utilize modern automotive fuses. I've always disliked the euro-style fuses.
Monte
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Well, folks, I'd like to conclude this thread with a happy ending! This afternoon, I made a trip to the local BMW dealer in Greenville, and after spending a few minutes ogling the shiny new Beemers in the showroom (and drooling over a sweet '09 R1200R), made my way to the parts counter and plunked down $0.55 for two new 8 amp ceramic fuses. As soon as I got home, I loosened up the little knurled knob to open the fuse box and took out the two fuses. I could see a little oxidation where the metal tips of the fuses rest inside the holders, so I took a bit of sandpaper and kind of rubbed around the holders for a few moments, then popped in the two new fuses in place and replaced the fuse box cover. I fired up Britta, and after she settled into her familiar staccato rhythmic idle, flicked my turnsignal switch. Bingo!! The little green light between the speedo and tach began flashing! I checked both left and right, then hit the horn and heard that lovely (if anemic) "beep" sound of the Airhead horn. YAY!!!!!!!!! Success!! :D
So, kids, what could have turned out to be a real headache and a relatively expensive fix (like if the problem had been a relay or switch), ended up being a simple and CHEAP, I repeat, CHEAP solution!
(Doncha just love happy endings?) ;)
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Would suggest using some dialectric grease where the fuse ends make contact. This is also a fairly routine maintenance item on Volvo 240s... ;)
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...Used a bit of dilectric grease for reinstall. Monte
Began researching this silicone-based (mostly) grease issue on the www. What I first discovered is that I need to stand in front of the blackboard and write "dielectric" -with an 'e'- 100 times. :) Monte
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Picky, Picky, Picky, Monte.
The tube I use was given to me by a buddy who works for Honda. The Honda label doesn't use the word at all. Just says it has silicone in it and should be used sparingly on electrical connections to seal and prevent corrosion.
;D
Ed
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Picky, Picky, Picky, Monte.
The tube I use was given to me by a buddy who works for Honda. The Honda label doesn't use the word at all. Just says it has silicone in it and should be used sparingly on electrical connections to seal and prevent corrosion.;D Ed
My bride is a teacher by trade. I goof up and it's, like, do it over until you get it right x 100. ;)
I've also purchased this stuff in a small tube labeled as "bulb grease". Hey! I spelled that correctly!
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Ah, but how do you pronounce the word "nuclear".... hopefully not like our soon to be ex-president, "nucular"...
[smiley=beehive.gif]
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Ah, but how do you pronounce the word "nuclear".... hopefully not like our soon to be ex-president, "nucular"...[smiley=beehive.gif]
...as did former Texas-born president Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower. Showing my age, again. :)
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Ah, but how do you pronounce the word "nuclear".... hopefully not like our soon to be ex-president, "nucular"...
[smiley=beehive.gif]
You do have NOMEX underwear don't you? ;)
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We get used to searching the web for things spelled correctly and then spelt in Americanese.
Like looking for Aluminium. You then need to go and search for Aluminum as well. Why do you guys drop the 'i' ;)
John
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I spoke with a British guy and an Australian guy I met while in Hawaii about the whole "Aluminium" thing. At least their responses were sensible, even if I still didn't agree with them on how to pronounce the word. They each claimed that they would pronounce the element in the periodic table as "Aluminum", but that they used the term "Aluminium" for any metal alloy that they weren't sure what its actual consistency/content of Aluminum was. It at least made some sense on some level... though I don't know if those same rules are used by others who insist that there are (2) letter "i"s in the word, instead of just (1).
As far as pronouncing the word "nuclear" - well, there just isn't any intelligent explanation that I know of - doesn't speak well at all for our president's Ivy League education. Though many will say that it was only Yale, after all, and not Harvard. Yale is just a step above the average community college, right ?!?
I got 2 layers of Nomex on !
;D
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From the wikipedia:
Nomenclature history
The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from his journal Philosophical Transactions: "Had I been so fortunate as..to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium."[29]
By 1812, Davy had settled on aluminum. He wrote in the journal Chemical Philosophy: "As yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state."[30] But the same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."[31]
The -ium suffix had the advantage of conforming to the precedent set in other newly discovered elements of the time: potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and strontium (all of which Davy had isolated himself). Nevertheless, -um spellings for elements were not unknown at the time, as for example platinum, known to Europeans since the sixteenth century, molybdenum, discovered in 1778, and tantalum, discovered in 1802.
Americans adopted -ium to fit the standard form of the periodic table of elements, for most of the nineteenth century, with aluminium appearing in Webster's Dictionary of 1828. In 1892, however, Charles Martin Hall used the -um spelling in an advertising handbill for his new electrolytic method of producing the metal, despite his constant use of the -ium spelling in all the patents[26] he filed between 1886 and 1903.[32] It has consequently been suggested that the spelling reflects an easier to pronounce word with one fewer syllable, or that the spelling on the flier was a mistake. Hall's domination of production of the metal ensured that the spelling aluminum became the standard in North America; the Webster Unabridged Dictionary of 1913, though, continued to use the -ium version.
In 1926, the American Chemical Society officially decided to use aluminum in its publications; American dictionaries typically label the spelling aluminium as a British variant.
[edit]Present-day spelling
In the UK and other countries using British spelling, only aluminium (with an i before -um) is used. In the United States, the spelling aluminium is largely unknown, and the spelling aluminum predominates.[33][34] The Canadian Oxford Dictionary prefers aluminum, whereas the Australian Macquarie Dictionary prefers aluminium.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both, but places aluminium first in alphabetical order.[35] IUPAC officially prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although several IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum.[36]
greetings from a gray and rainy north
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Thanks for the etymological lesson, Trolle - I hadn't realized that there was so much history/controversy behind that element !
Just goes to support the old saying that "Americans and British are two peoples separated by a common language" !
And we've got the Australians to throw in with it, too !
;)