Home
Repair And Restoration
CBF 250 Indicator Relay Bodge
Bodge Date 26 February 2016
By Ren Withnell
NB - Flasher Unit or Indicator Relay mean the same thing...
If you read Crusty Wires - A Sign Of Doom? you'll know the indicators on the CBF 250 packed up during a long, wet and grim ride. I discovered that the wires to the indicator relay had expired due to copper oxide (copper rust essentially). This is a sign the bike is getting old and has lived a hard life, presumably somewhere very wet.
Yeah, not so good that really.
The correct course of action would be to replace the whole wiring harness with a shiny new one from Honda. Yeah...right. The next best and affordable option is to strip the wires back until I find some without corrosion, solder new wires onto those, replace the block connector and possibly the indicator relay. Thing is that's still not my style. My style is to cut the wires back enough to find some almost clean copper, sandpaper the copper, solder on some new wires and then bodge on a cheap ebay indicator relay.
Well that's some new wires bodged on in there. Yes, they're the same colour but I have a multimeter alright.
Old style "Bi-Metallic Strip" flasher units need to match the power going through them. For example on my CBF 125 there are 2 x 21 watt bulbs (front and rear indicators either left or right) and a 3.4 watt dash light. As such you would purchase a "2 x 21 watt + 3.4 watt" relay. However the CBF 250 uses 16 watt bulbs. If, as I did, you placed the 125 indicator relay on the 250 the flasher will either flash too fast or not at all. Did you ever have your car or motorcycle indicators flash really fast only to find you've an indicator bulb out? That's because the power usage no longer matches the flasher unit.
Modern relays are different. Because many many folks fit aftermarket LED indicators which have a tiny teeny wattage these are simply not using enough electricity to cause any Bi-Metallic strip to warm up enough to bend. Instead they use electronics. Luckily it seems some of these will also take the current that old school filament bulbs draw too. As such I purchased one from ebay that stated "2 x 21 watt + 3.4 watt" which also claimed to be capable of flashing the low power LED's Thinking that my 250 use less than 21w x 2 + 3.4w but more than LEDs, I should be OK.
Less than the stated wattage, but can flash LEDs. Should be OK I hope.
My parcel arrived. I stripped back some crusty wires. I cleaned (sort of) the remaining crustyness, persuaded some solder to stick, attached some new wires, connected on some spade connectors, checked my voltages and wired up the new relay. BOOM! It works! I now have indication once more.
And there we go. Might need some heat shrink on them spade connectors soon.
A note for the technical amongst you. Firstly the CBF 250 is a 3 wire flasher set up. In the case of my motorcycle this means 12v positive, ground (negative) and a feed to the indicator switch. Be careful, not all 3 wire set ups are the same, you'll need to consult your wiring diagrams. However the replacement relay is 2 wire. I can simply ignore the ground wire in this case. Again I re-iterate your motorcycle may be a different set up, if you are unsure you're going to need the help of a bona-fide auto electrician.
Secondly my relay and many I have seen have the pins or connectors marked as "B" and "L". It took a while to find but eventually I learned this stands for "Battery" and "Load". So the "B" post goes to the battery via the ignition switch and the "L" goes to the handlebar switch. On an old style Bi-Metallic switch this does not matter at all, but as the new ones are electronic probably with a chip and such I suspect if I put the wires on the wrong way round the electronics would not be happy at all...POP!
You may also note the relay is in an unusual position. The old position was obviously in an area that gets wet, so I have relocated it to the top of what was once the air box. It should be drier under the seat. Why is the air box no longer an air box? K&N cone filter - the airbox is now a handy storage box.
Reader's Comments
Steve Latchford said :-
Applause mate
26/02/2016 20:28:43 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Thanks Steve...although I suspect you are being sarcastic.
26/02/2016 21:09:21 UTC
Daf said :-
Interesting... I remember the old 3 and 4 pin metallic flashers. I guess everything these days is going from Electric to Electronic. At least there isn't a CANBUS or ODB in sight on the CBF!
Glad you got it sorted out mate!
29/02/2016 15:58:35 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Cheers Daf. Nope no CANBUS or ODB - just good old wires and switches and a CDI unit. Stuff you can understand and fix.
29/02/2016 16:21:22 UTC
TonyF said :-
Can you photo the wire colours going into your CDi. For some stupid rason I've pulled my wires out of the socket, and now not 100% sure where they go
25/09/2016 20:27:20 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Argh! No Tony that's bad news. I'm sorry but I no longer have the CBF250 any more. Good luck with finding the details your looking for.
26/09/2016 07:20:34 UTC
said :-
02/04/2022 16:21:57 UTC
Name
Comment
Add a RELEVANT link (not required)
Upload an image (not required) -
Uploading...
Home
Repair And Restoration