"Get me home switch" - list of bypasses

aSTerix

aSTerix

Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
681
Location
Oman
Bike
ST1100AY
As part of a class I teach to teenagers, we have been thinking about having one master switch which is selected on when the bike stops running i.e. it basically bypasses everything that is known to fail and lets you limp home or to a garage. (This is very relevant for this part of the world)

They went through the wiring diagram and come up with this initial list, open to additions.

  1. vacuum Fuel valve bypass
  2. Sidestand not signalling UP bypass
  3. Clutch diode U/S bypass
  4. Fuel Cut Off Relay U/S bypass
  5. Fuel pump not working bypass
  6. Fuse terminal burnt out
  7. Alternator not producing charge - voltage sense bypass
  8. Tail lamp not working bypass
  9. dip beam not working bypass
  10. cooling fan not running bypass
  11. Engine run switch not working bypass
  12. Starter solenoid not engaging
  13. bank angle sensor triggered bypass
  14. brake light not functioning bypass
Anything else you have had or can think of gratefully received. Next step will be to design the bypasses (some mechanical, some electrical) and see if they can be connected to one master switch !!!
 
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drtyrrel said:
I have one in my wallet called AAA :biggrin:
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I wish AAA extended over here !!

Numerous times now I have been stuck in the middle of the desert in scorching temperatures whilst trying to get a signal and then phoning around multiple recovery people (they are all one man band) and trying to negotiate a pickup . Whats annoying is that in all cases so far a "get me home" bypass would have at least got me to shade and water if not to a garage or home

On as aside, last year I was driving from at conference at Indian Wells to Las Vegas, in a hire car and decided to take the direct Google route, ended up driving down dirt tracks across a desert and in the absolute middle of nowhere the engine shutdown. It took 4 hours to get a recovery truck to me and that was due thankfully to having a data connection on my phone. In all that time I did not see any other vehicles, just a very large Tortoise who wasn't very talkative and it was damn hot
 
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If a bike left me stranded that much under those conditions, I would just bypass the bike. Seriously, if a bike is that unreliable where I have to worry to the point of having a safeguard because I cant fix said deficiencies, I would get rid of it.
 
Bmacleod said:
If a bike left me stranded that much under those conditions, I would just bypass the bike. Seriously, if a bike is that unreliable where I have to worry to the point of having a safeguard because I cant fix said deficiencies, I would get rid of it.
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By the time I have finished the complete ST1100 top to bottom rebuild it will be a lot more reliable, most of the failed components have gone because of the heat so I should get quite a few years of reliability with new components.

Its relatively easy to build the bypasses into the rebuild, most of them have been discussed here and on St-riders, I am just looking for any other failures that riders have had that I can include in the list

As an aside I will probably do a write up on how each can be bypassed so its all in one handy place

There are 3 ST1100's in my country and I have 2 of them, the lead mechanic at the dealer has the third
 
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Asterysk said:
I have been thinking about having one master switch which is selected on when the bike stops running i.e. it basically bypasses everything that is known to fail and lets you limp home or to a garage.

Here is my list so far, open to additions. Next step will be to design the bypasses (some mechanical, come electrical)

  1. vacuum Fuel valve bypass
  2. Sidestand not signalling UP bypass
  3. Clutch diode U/S bypass
  4. Fuel Cut Off Relay U/S bypass
  5. Fuel pump not working bypass
  6. Fuse terminal burnt out
  7. Alternator not producing charge - voltage sense bypass
  8. Tail lamp not working bypass
  9. dip beam not working bypass
  10. cooling fan not running bypass
  11. Engine run switch not working bypass
  12. Starter solenoid not engaging
  13. bank angle sensor triggered bypass
  14. brake light not functioning bypass
Anything else you have had or can think of gratefully received. Next step will be to design the bypasses (some mechanical, some electrical) and see if they can be connected to one master switch !!!
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Ignition switch.
 
Seems like you're adding potential failure points to bypass things that are not known to fail. :confused1: I rarely, if ever, hear of those items failing.

I've put about 150k miles in all kinds of weather on two 2001 ST1100s and none of those items on your list have ever failed. I do admit to bypassing the fuel vacuum switch though.
 
Whooshka said:
Hopefully 2 of them are running. Go for a ride and enjoy them!
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Total lockdown here, only allowed out every 3 days for groceries and then only direct route from home to supermarket so no riding and no enjoyment
 
Bmacleod said:
If a bike left me stranded that much under those conditions, I would just bypass the bike. Seriously, if a bike is that unreliable where I have to worry to the point of having a safeguard because I cant fix said deficiencies, I would get rid of it.
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perhaps another way of thinking about it is this, imagine your riding in the middle of winter in sub zero temperatures and in a fairly desolate area, if you break down would you like to be able to simply flick a switch and hopefully keep moving ? Thats the situation I find myself in regularly except that its the other extreme 40-50C and having had it happen with various bikes and cars I really don't enjoy the experience !
 
Asterysk said:
Can I ask, did you do this on the side of the road or back home/garage ?
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At home, before it failed. But very easy to do on side of road if necessary.
 
Asterysk said:
perhaps another way of thinking about it is this, imagine your riding in the middle of winter in sub zero temperatures and in a fairly desolate area, if you break down would you like to be able to simply flick a switch and hopefully keep moving ? Thats the situation I find myself in regularly except that its the other extreme 40-50C and having had it happen with various bikes and cars I really don't enjoy the experience !
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I maintain my vehicles in hopes that that never happens. If, after all that my vehicle regularly left me stranded or I thought there was a risk of it, it would be gone. I guess the part I'm stuck on now is in the first post you said that the bike leaves you stranded regularly and then later you said you have replaced all the parts that have failed you and you should be good now so why do you need to failsafe, especially at the risk of adding more fail points, as Paul wisely pointed out
 
If the fuel pump is not working, what kind of bypass did you have in mind? Maybe a spare fuel pump already installed in the tank a couple of inches above the bottom?

Some of your items don't sound like you need to be concerned with them. If the high beam/low beam headlight switch fails (dip beam) it will not immobilize the bike, nor will it affect running lights. If a tail lamp fails, what will the bypass do? If the radiator fan fails, how will a bypass help (unless you are bypassing the engine coolant sensor switch)? Brake light? Were an officer to stop you that would be a good thing - help is now at hand (unless, like some countries, they expect to extract a mordita from you).

I had a customer with two interconnected deep sump pits in a sub basement of a movie theatre with one pump. After two failures and up to 6 or 8' of raw sewage in this sub basement that had to be pumped out, he hired me to come up with a solution. We put one trash pump in each pit and wired them so that they alternated pumping out the sewage (each was float controlled). A secondary 'overflow' float would turn on power to both pumps in the event that the depth of the liquid went beyond a certain level and activated a signal for the manager. This was years before PLC's became widely available. The whole idea might be overkill for a motorcycle, but having a spare fuel pump aboard might not be a bad idea. They only last for what, 150,000 miles or so?
 
I encourage people to tinker and create, but honestly I think all this modification you want to do will only end up creating a hodgepodge of shed-engineered failure points that will cause you no end of headache.

Honda builds bikes that are very well engineered and provide decades of faithful service with nothing more than basic maintenance. You'd need to have some pretty remarkable skills to improve on the bike's basic reliability, and if that's the case, then maybe you should take on the challenge of designing your own bike from the ground up. John Britten did it.

It just seems like you're awfully worried about heat and a mechanical breakdown. If it's causing you that much existential angst, maybe motorcycle riding in Dubai isn't the best pursuit.
 
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SMSW said:
f the fuel pump is not working, what kind of bypass did you have in mind? Maybe a spare fuel pump already installed in the tank a couple of inches above the bottom?
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I was going to run a parallel fuel line connected into the existing fuelline with a T valve (see photo below) . The parallel line would have a fuel flter & pump then connect back into the fuel line after the vacuum cut off valve . The pump would be supplied directly with its own 12v switched supply to bypass the posisble FCOR malfunction

This was actually the first bypass I thought about, having had on separate occasions the vacuum valve go and the fuel pump go , both whilst out riding.

The challenge with this one is getting the parallel components shoe-horned into the available space and having the bypass valve accessible

I have my tank on the bench and have also been contemplating connecting an additional feed line for an auxiliary fuel tank (as being discussed in another thread that is runnig at the moment) and if I do this, it will be a better place to connect the parallel fuel line.

Screenshot 2020-04-18 at 09.01.36.png
 
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Shawn K said:
It just seems like you're awfully worried about heat and a mechanical breakdown. If it's causing you that much existential angst, maybe motorcycle riding in Dubai isn't the best pursuit.
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It can actually be a matter of life and death during the summer months, the alternative is not to ride outside the city but thats not in my nature

It is hard to describe how difficult it is to do any roadside repair when you have a blazing sun scorching you, if you touch the ground or metal parts with skin it burns and sweat is pouring the water from you body at such a rate you have to be continuously drinking to replenish. I can manage about 30 mins max working at the side of the road when its like this and having had to do it now several times I can say from experience its something I want to avoid where possible.

If by simple forethought and a bit of additional wiring I have a switch that gets me going again to a safer place then for me its worth the little bit of extra effort, especially seeing as I have one ST1100 completely in bits and am redoing the wiring harness

I guess its all about perspective depending on the environment you live in.

Anyway, this is a bt of a digression, what I am simply asking for is some input into what other types of electrical related failures other ST riders may have experienced or heard of
 
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Bmacleod said:
I maintain my vehicles in hopes that that never happens. If, after all that my vehicle regularly left me stranded or I thought there was a risk of it, it would be gone. I guess the part I'm stuck on now is in the first post you said that the bike leaves you stranded regularly and then later you said you have replaced all the parts that have failed you and you should be good now so why do you need to failsafe, especially at the risk of adding more fail points, as Paul wisely pointed out
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This is a good point, once I have rebuilt the ST it will be very well maintained and its unlikely that I will have the failures again but seeing as its an easy thing to build the bypasses into the wiring harness as I rebuild it I figure why not as a failsafe.

As an aside, the environment here ravages vehicles, all of my bikes and cars (including the ST's) have been regularly maintained by dealers and they still have components fail, primarily rubber and electrical components. I have an off road Landcruiser and that goes to to the garage who specialises in maintaining off road safari vehicles , it's there every 2 weeks for inspection and maintenance and it still has broken down a couple of times and always in the middle of nowhere , thankfully with the Landcruiser I can carry a massive sunshade and lots of water and spares.
 
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SMSW said:
If the radiator fan fails, how will a bypass help
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Agreed, if the fan fails then no bypass will help, I was thinking about the supply to the fan failing.

Is a fan failing a common problem ?
 
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