I promised Milageman that I would post all the things that Yamaha did to my bike to finally solve my problems. To say the least, there was more than one thing wrong. I expect that most of you probably have had more than one thing wrong. The largest problem I started with was finding a Yamaha shop willing to take on a project bike. I live near Houston, TX, but not in it. All of the Yamaha shops I connected with did not want a Project Bike. That said, my hat is off to Columbus Outfitters/Yamaha. They have a good reputation, especially to bikers broke down along I-10 between San Antonio and Houston. They will work on any bike, including Harley's. This is a long post, but it is the entire story covering about 7 months.
My bike first went in last October 2015. The comments below are from the Shop managers report:
10/24/2015, Miles 21,250
"Customer reports erratic idle and operation engine speed changes without rider input.
Requested symptom diagnostic and tune up.
1) Valve Clearance Check-
Cyl #1 intake: .005" exhaust: .008"
Cyl #2 intake: .005" exhaust: .009"
SPEC intake: .003"-.006"
SPEC exhaust: .008"-.011"
2)Replaced spark plugs CPR8EB-9 qty.4
3) Throttle Body Sync-
Digital verification with Vacuum Mate
4) YCC-T Servo Actuator Check
Conducted Tech Bulletin procedure in YDS Tech Library for TB "Fly BY Wire" servo. Vehicle revealed no abnormal readings and passed all resistance and voltage checks.
After all the above work was completed the technician applied Amsoil Power Foam. Power Foam is a spray product formulated to clean TB plenums, sensors etc, of fuel varnish and gum left by ethanol and degraded fuel."
Seth, the Shop manager told me that the TB's were 25% out of sync! The bike ran great for about 2 months, then started showing signs of surging and stalling again. The electronics turned completely off when I pulled in the clutch to shift at any speed. During the Christmas Holidays it failed to start even while on the battery charger. It would not start under any circumstance. I returned to the shop after the Holidays.
2nd manager Report:
1/12/2016, Miles 21315
"Customer towed vehicle in for service. Vehicle would not start. Customer noted that vehicle seems to exhibit symptoms more frequently during cold and/or rainy conditions.
1) Contacted Yamaha Service Support to bounce some ideas back and forth as to what may be causing the bike to run poorly and now, not start. The Service Support Agent advised me to file an "out of warranty assistance claim" and replace the wiring harness. I was hesitant but Yamaha was going to cover the cost, so no harm in trying. Before the harness arrived my Technician replaced the plugs with a "hotter" rated plug, CPR6EB-9. The vehicle started and ran well but we decided to go ahead with replacing the wiring harness as it was already approved and on order. We replaced the harness once it arrived and also relocated the positive lead to a LED light bar that was wired to the 12 V diagnostic plug. Yamaha had indicated that this plug was not used on this particular model (has self-diag) but it IS connected to the ECM and that it would be wise to power the LED light from an ACC circuit. Test ride revealed no signs of trouble and the wring harness seemed to do the trick. Vehicle was picked up and returned less than two hours later with same issues. At this point we were finally able to observe exactly what the customer was complaining about. "
The bike was on a degrading cycle. Now that the new wiring harness was installed, the stalls and stops ceased. The mechanics could finally hear and feel what I had told them was repeatedly happening. Starting at a good operating speed and mpg set on running mpg, one could watch the performance degrade and be prepared for the computer to make a sudden change to "repair" the settings. At least that's what I think was happening. The engine sounded like boat exhaust, had no power, would not climb steep grades with out down shifting (45mph), the exhaust would pop and sputter, then suddenly the bike would surge forward with no rpm increase. Just BAM 40-60mph in a few seconds. This cycle would repeat about every 5 minutes. I have to ride a half mile at idle (about 10mph) into my park where I live. The bike would jerk, stall, pop, and surge, over and over. I forwarded this conversation to Seth and then began a through research of this problem. Both I and Seth has many discussions, also I had several group conversations with the shop owner, who I gave permission to ride my bike on weekends. Both of them agreed that there was something screwy going on with this bike. Over the next month, Seth replaced a mess of electronic parts. I would be hard pressed to list it all here because they aren't written down. I know I got new coil ignitors and they were changing the plugs quite often. They also rewired the harness per mileageman's recommendation. One of the things they did was enrich the fuel settings from 0 to 23. I don't think it changed anything and may have been an additional factor to more problems. The problem was that the bike was passing the bench tests, but failing real life use. After the first week of March, they ran out of ideas. They said the bike ran good, but wasn't right. I decided to ride it a few weeks and examine what it was doing. I wanted to work out in my mind a statement about the bikes poor performance to Yamaha Corporate. The email below is what I said to Seth:
3-25-2016
"I've been riding this bike for two weeks working on a verbal argument in my mind to Yamaha. But here are some things I noticed.
1. Hesitation: The bike hesitates when starting off. It has caught me twice on driveways where it stalled when leaning over. I dropped it on one of those times because I had no ground under me. Since I was virtually stopped I just kept it from hitting the ground hard. When pulling away from idling through the park, it seems to hesitate, much like the bikes did in the 60's when we had to roll back on the throttle to allow the fuel to catch up before dumping the throttle. Sometimes it just shutters for about 100 feet.
2. Valve clanking: I have never decided if the noises I hear are from natural looseness of moving parts or if there is slack in the internal engine. This usually happens when I am rolling into the park after the engine is hot; the valves sound like they are trying to trade places. There is such a clanking sound coming from the engine that it sounds like the valves are not properly adjusted or the chain is slack.
3. Bad fuel mileage: I know part of it is from enriching the fuel system, but I think this bike gets really bad fuel mileage now. I used to get 200 miles before hitting reserve. Now I'm lucky to get 140. I used to be able to keep it on 3,000 rpm in 6th and get 60mpg at 60 mph consistently; 5th, 55mph, 55mpg. Even under bad wind loads and gear, I could expect in the low 50's in tour mode. The average mpg's I'm getting now are mid 30's where as before was mid 40's, even when I was blasting it in Sport mode. When I settle at 3k rpm, the mpg starts at 57mpg roughly and heads downward to around mid 30's. Also, I have difficulty keeping it at a steady speed. After it drops down, I can expect it to surge soon. If I keep this bike for a few months, we may need to lean it back out some.
4. Surging at a light: One day I was slowing down at a light and down shifting. I hit second and let out the clutch and it jumped out into the intersection. I was able to stop it by killing the motor. Then I had to clutch in and back up, restart. That only happened once. I now clutch in when approaching an intersection. I'm not sure if the surging at speed is caused by a glitch, or more likely, the computer readjusting. I can almost always count on a surge like action after performance drops when it starts to degrade.
5. Popping and Sputtering: While on the highway, I can feel pings either through my butt or through my feet. I can look at the gauges and see the speed drop and the fuel mileage drop. I know to expect a surge soon and be ready. usually after coming in from a ride, it pops and sputters. One day I drove up and down Coushatte Road in either 3rd or 4th gear. I would hold the bike at various rpm's usually around 3500 to mimic going 70 on the highway. The bike would begin popping and losing power until I finally had to change the position of my hand on the throttle to make it stop. When it began to lose power, it slowed, and just ran out of power to climb the hills. I tested in both Sport and Tour, 3rd and 4th, 3500, 3000, and 2500 rpms. The section of road I traveled was protected by trees and blocked the cross winds."
When ever I would go for a ride, I had to keep a lot of distance between me and other vehicles. A surge at 45 may only pop me up to 55, but a surge at 70 could pop me up to 85. Most times I caught it, but riding the bike became exhausting because I always had to monitor the gauges for signs that it was getting ready to surge.
At the beginning of April I called Yamaha to see if I could get someone to take this bike off of me, or give me some kind of trade in value to get a later model Tenere, even tho I had mixed feelings about buying another that could crap out in 2 years. What I got instead was a Yamaha Regional Service Rep. So about mid-April when he showed up in Columbus, I resubmitted the bike to Columbus Yamaha. Before the rep arrived, I had Seth examine the cam chain tensioner. It was a-ok. The rep decided that the valves were stopped up with carbon. Seth ran a scope in through the exhaust ports into the head, not sure how, but they deduced that the intake valves on the number two cylinder could not close due to excessive carbon build up. After some discussion, we decided to try the Ring Free flush first. Over the next several days they ran a gallon of Yamalube Ring Free through the engine in a solution super strong solution (50/50). They also discovered that one of my intake valves on the no.2 cylinder has an oil leak. It isn't bad, but it's there. I can only wonder if it's a result of the carbon build up. The only way to fix it is a head job. Then they had to change the oil too, and we decided on a 10W50 semi-synthetic. It was also recommended to me to add a half ounce of Yamalube Engine Med RX to every fill up. The Engine med RX has an Ethanol treatment as well as the Ring Free. The result is that the engine runs great! It performs at all levels the way it should. I've been riding it for several days and so far, it all looks good. No more jerking, motor boating exhaust, popping, sputtering, stalling, hesitation. It's all gone.
Yamaha has several You Tube videos on the damage Ethanol does to their engines. Just blowing it out on the highway isn't enough. So now, I am back to getting ready for my touring season. Happy Trails y'all!
