Replacing Yagi's Turn/Lights/Horn switch assembly

I'd mentioned in a previous post how I thought a malfunctioning turn signal switch had caused the TW200's main fuse to blow.

The control assembly had also gotten progressively worse to the point the horn button didn't work anymore and it was hard to turn off the turn signals.

So I ordered a generic one from Amazon, manufactured by Kawell and less than $9!  It's about $90+ for one from Yamaha.

Image source: Amazon

Link to switch -Amazon Affiliate Link

I've been home since Friday, had time today to retrieve Yagi from the RV Storage Yard and work on her switch control swap.

Pretty straightforward, you have to determine which color wires do what on each switch assembly, the old one and the new one.   Then match up the wires correspondingly, test, and when everything works as it should, make hopefully permanent connections and tidy things up.  No, color schemes don't match  up, at all.

Made a couple of mistakes, one cost me a blown fuse as I apparently hooked up wrong wires the first time; and the other was I wired the high beam switch setting to the low beam wire and vice versa.  Not difficult to correct as you might imagine.

For my reference, here's the wire combinations:

First, the headlight beam modes.  Sorry for the blurry picture, but not going to unwrap everything to retake the picture.  

Basically: Top is Yamaha (Y) wiring, bottom is Kawell (K) wiring.  

(Y)Green to (K)White

(Y)Yellow to (K)solid blue

(Y)Blue with black stripe to (k)Blue with white stripe.  

Note, these three wires on the Kawell side were "loose" and not used in the connector it came with, the connector isn't usable with the stock Yamaha connector.

Next come the turn signal and horn wires.  Again, Yamaha wires on the top and Kawell wires on the bottom.

(Y)Black to (K)Aqua (horn)

(Y)Pink to (K)Green (horn)

(Y)Dark Green to (K)Light Blue (Left Turn)

(Y)Brown with White stripe to (K)Gray (Turn signal off)

(Y)Brown to (K)Orange (Right Turn)

Here's what the switch control looks like, mounted on Yagi's handlebar.  Yeah, it's not push to cancel on the turn signal but then again, that didn't last long on the stock version of the control switch.

A slow glamping week

Monday, August 26.

Not much got done in terms of riding, pretty much relaxed around the campsite.

Tuesday, August 27.

Woke early, again, and got some pics of the campsite as the morning sun got above the nearby hill:

Rode into Vail to have lunch with neighborhood friend Dale B.  We went to a pizza/sandwich shop, not very expensive.  The rest of the afternoon was spent by me troubleshooting a high idle situation with Fiona, my '99 Rig.  Didn't make much progress there.

Then it was time for a mild sunset:

Wednesday, August 28.

Got the URRV prepped for me not being with it tonight.  Basically securing the generator inside the RV and attaching a cable lock on Yagi as she sat mounted on the trailer.

I then rode back home on Fiona, still experiencing the high idle issue but otherwise no problems.  Got home after about 2.5 hours of riding.  It was much warmer down in the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area!

In the afternoon, now that I was back in the garage with Fiona, I decided it was time to examine the carburetors.  I think I may have found the issue causing the high idle:

 Left side carburetor's idle jet, the o-ring is

damaged, which allows air leakage.

 Black sludge, I think from a disintegrating o-ring

in the cavity where the main jet is located.

 Both main jets had damaged O-rings;

it's apparently very easy to damage the

darn things when installing the jets.

So, I've ordered replacement o-rings of course, along with some new return springs for the choke levers on the carburetors and some spare throttle return springs as well.  They should be at the BMW dealer some Tuesday of next week.  Hopefully this will remedy the high idle situation with Fiona.

Thursday, August 29

Had a medical appointment at the VA Outpatient Clinic in Aurora.  Part of the process to be assigned a primary care provider.  That went well, they did all the usual checks and drew some blood for lab work.

After that, I got back on Scarlett, my 2014 rig and rode all the way back to the campsite, with no issues and got there just before Noon.

Soon I was joined by Dale B. and Bob W., friends from the neighborhood who were staying at a timeshare condo Dale had arranged in nearby Vail.  Lunch was consumed and then we prepped to take the motorcycles and Bob's ATV for a ride.

Dale B. would end up on Bob W's ATV, Bob would be on the TW200 and I would of course ride Scarlett.

Note to self.  Use full pre-load on the shock absorbers for no "wallowing" behavior when riding at above 45 mph!  Use no pre-load when doing dirt/rocky road riding.  It's much better that way.

Below pics taken with iPhone 6s, forgot my camera at home.

We rode and explored Lime Creek Road first and then we headed back to Shrine Pass Road and eventually we showed the town of Redcliff to Bob.

photo courtesy of Dale B.

 Bob and Dale at the "snowcat" VW bus

 Dale and Bob beneath the bridge over the Eagle River

near Redcliff, CO

Shooting the breeze near the old cabin sites along Shrine Pass Road

Three went out, and three came back.  No injuries and no mechanical issues.  A good afternoon of riding.

We finished off the afternoon relaxing by the RV and having some snacks.  Soon, the weather turned chilly though so Bob and Dale left after securing the ATV to the bed of Bob's pickup truck.

After a quick dinner, I went and used the iPhone to capture this evening's sunset.  I used a third party camera app instead of the built-in camera app and got some decent results.

Not too bad eh?  The iPhone 6s that I have can't shoot in RAW mode so there were limits to what post-proceeding the images using Lightroom could achieve.  

The area is starting to fill up with campers showing up already for the long Labor Day Weekend.  I'll be leaving here tomorrow to avoid the weekend crush of campers and tourists.

Update, a couple of short videos:

Dale on ATV, Bob on the TW200

Easily loading his ATV onto his pickup truck.
Easy Peasy for an ex-Navy Carrier Pilot!

Views of the Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway and Uraling about the eastern end of Shrine Pass Road

Saturday, August 24

Here's some pics of Fiona from yesterday's Sunset at the pullout where I can get 4G cellular Internet connectivity

Did some maintenance tasks for the RV and motorcycles and then headed out on Fiona for today's riding.  Stopped at the nearby pullout to check email and check in with the family and then headed to the I-70 entrance ramp.

It was perhaps 5 miles to exit 185, Colorado Highway 91 towards Leadville.  The plan was to photograph the usual mountain spots (it's been a while since I've come up) and to explore the national forest camp sites along CO 91 and south of Fremont Pass.

I did find a couple of sites that might be usable, with even good cellular signal even, just not sure what I'd be exploring in the area by camping in those spots.

I was then exploring an interesting trail near the zipline facility and not paying attention, allowed the tug to go into a deep rut and my left foot got caught on the edge of the rut.  It twisted my foot off the foot peg in a quite painful manner and I stopped shortly thereafter feeling some excruciating pain.

Slowly, the pain became bearable and I tried putting weight on the left foot and was able to hobble about, in pain, but moving.  Called Martha, my loving wife and nurse, she diagnosed a sprained ankle and recommended I return to the URRV.

So I retraced my route on CO 91, stopping still at the planned spots for pics:

Sorry, but I forgot to use the PeakFinder app to figure out the name of the peaks above.

I will admit, getting off and on the rig was an exercise in slow movement and making sure no real pressure was placed on the left ankle!

I got back to the campsite with no issue but the ankle was throbbing at this point.  Downed some Vitamin I (Ibuprofen) got some ice and wrapped it around my swollen ankle (taking off the boot was an exercise in pain) and just laid down and took it easy the rest of the afternoon.

By evening, the ankle was still swollen but I was able to hobble about the RV and outside with just minimal pain twinges at the ankle.

Sunday, August 25

Today was a good day.

Woke to a still swollen ankle but I was able to hobble around the campsite and RV with minimal twinges of pain so I called it progress.

Once it warmed up a bit (woke to temperatures in the low 40s), I got geared up and wearing the more supportive riding boots, went Uraling with Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol.  No way I can ride Yagi for now, one needs two working ankles for two-wheeled riding!

I rode over to the Exit 190 rest area looking for a trash dumpster for my accumulated trash.  No joy.

I then rode over to nearby Black Lake, one of them anyways, the other's access road was closed.

 Mount Powell in the middle, the rightmost peak wasn't named

by the PeakFinder app on my phone.

 Jacque Peak

 Keller Mountain in the middle and Mount Valhalla on the right

There had been a trailer RV parked there before in the site above.  The camper apparently moved off this morning and I hurried back to the URRV to break camp and grab this site!

My sore ankle proved to slow me down a bit, and made the loading of the TW200 onto the front-mounted rail on the trailer a bit of a challenge, but after one slight drop and four attempts, managed to get it onto the rail and tied down.

Getting Fiona onto the trailer bed was of course no big deal.  All other items such as solar panels, chair, generator and such were thrown into the URRV and off we went to the new site.

As you can see, I managed to snag the site before some other

camper came by.

What's the motto of the British Special Air Service?  "Who Dares, Wins".  In this case, I took the chance that it being Sunday afternoon, most folks are heading back home instead of looking for a place to camp!  FTW as the youngsters say!

Here's my present view out the back window of the URRV, not too shabby:

Tonight's sunset here on the eastern end of the Shrine Pass Road, was in one word: Glorious.

Glamping off the Shrine Pass Road

August 22

Left the BLM site near Green Mountain Reservoir before 8AM so I could take a call with my financial guy while parked in the Safeway parking lot in the town of Silverthorne.  Good 4G connectivity in town of course and business concluded, I uploaded pics and post verbiage for the last three days.

Next it was a short ride on the I-70 Superslab, heading west to exit 190 which leads one to Shrine Pass Road as well as a rest area for drivers.

I had previously found a likely boondocking spot but it turned out to be occupied by another RV'er and besides, it was a lot smaller and sloping than I remembered.  Oh well, at the three mile mark from the exit, I found a nice big spot, you could put three RVs in here and still have some room between the units.  For now, I've got it all to myself

You'll note the TV antenna is listing...some part broke near the base that is involved in holding it up raising it up.  For now, I've fixed it using a block of wood to wedge it upright.  All for nought on this site because even with the weboost cellphone booster, couldn't get any kind of decent connectivity (though two bars LTE were displayed).

No matter, I am less than a half mile from a nice spot near the previously mentioned candidate spot and I get great connectivity there for posting blog content and Internet access as needed.  The camping site I'm on is good to go for voice calls however, so the family can reach me easily enough.

Less than a mile from my campsite

After lunch, I geared up and took Yagi, the 2006 Yamaha TW200 for a ride.

After the above pics, I decided to check FR781, there's a sign showing Lime Creek Road at the start, and it was a pretty easy dirt road (some rocks here and there to watch out for).  It climbed for a few miles and I found several spots where I had Internet connectivity.  I even found one spot by side of the road, near where the road is closed at the end, where I could conceivably park the URRV.  Maybe next time if the easier and closer spots are all taken.

Coming down the mountain and back to the highway, I decided to get a pic of the Vail Pass sign and see if there was any mountain scenery worth capturing. 

Turns out, not much besides the sign.  I rode the ten miles west to the next exit, Vail East.  From there it was frontage roads at less than superslab speeds (not Yagi's best medium) and about another five miles later, found a Conoco gas station in Vail West.

Tanked up, checked in with the family, and then headed on back to the campsite.  Basically 19.5 miles from that gas station in Vail West to the URRV, not too bad.  The rains which had started at noon (it even hailed for a little while since I'm camped at 11,000 feet elevation) turned to gray cloudy skies.

August 23

Woke up late, missed the pre-sunrise, but it felt good.  Ran the heater overnight as it got into the mid-40s here at 11,000 ft altitude.

It was still feeling a bit "brisk" when I headed out, but wearing the windproof jacket liner helped a lot.  I tried for both Sawmill Gulch and Wearyman Gulch trails but both were closed by the Forest Service due to a massive landslide and high water levels according to the signs.

I did spot the ruins of some old cabin structures off to the side, and stopped to take a quick look.  Not much left but did find a painted stone left by a previous camper next to a fire ring near the structures.

So I kept on going the 8 miles to the small town of Redcliff. 

Just before I got to the town limits, I passed by this cool looking VW bus conversion.  Perhaps a future project for SonjaM and Roland and their Ziggi?

I wandered about the town a bit, noted several homes and stores for sale and not many folks walking about.

I like the look of the house in the center of the picture

Done with the tour of the town, I rode north for a short bit looking for some scenery off of westbound US24:

Returning to a eastbound heading on US24, I was soon at the site of Camp Hale.  The home of the 10th Mountain Division, created in early years of WWII.  It was the US Army's only division trained in mountain warfare and the area around Camp Hale was its training grounds.  Here soldiers learned to climb mountain, become ski troops and apparently a lot of them would return to the US after the war to help start the ski industries of Colorado.

Not much left behind that one can see, just a big flat valley and blocked off areas where they've discovered asbestos contamination.

While tooling around, I stopped at one information sign to read and when I went to start Yagi back up, nothing.  No lights, no ignition.

I took the seat off and verified connections to the battery were tight, next was checking the fuses.  The TW200 has two 20 Amp fuses, one is a spare, both located behind the right side cover.  Sure enough, the "active" fuse was dead.  I put the spare fuse in and Yagi started right up.

Of course, now I had no spare and wondering what caused the fuse to break in the first place.  I suspected the turn signal, which had been giving me trouble again.  I rode over to a nearby ATV Guide/Rental place and spoke to their mechanic and got a spare 20 Amp fuse for a couple of bucks. 

As I chatted with the mechanic, he mentioned I should try and ride up to the top of Resolution Mountain and he gave me some instructions on the route.  Having the new spare fuse, I felt confident enough to try and off I went.

The road up, FR 702, wasn't too bad in terms of loose rocks/ruts and gravel.  Just a couple of points that might be considered technical but otherwise no issue for Yagi.  She got me to the top and of course, one was blocked again from going down the other side of the mountain due to landslides and high water.  You can end up in Wearyman Gulch by this route you see.

So I turned around, not feeling up to the steep hike up to the real top of the mountain where one can see a square building of some sorts.

 Not a bad view from near the top of Resolution Mountain

Tallest peak is Mount of the Holy Cross

I got back down the mountain with no issues, using first gear and engine braking on the gnarly parts and mostly 2nd gear for the rest to basically coast my way down to the valley.  Got back on westbound US24, back to Redcliff, back to Shrine Pass Road and swiftly getting back to the URRV campsite.  No issues, and didn't go into reserve on the gas tank with 84 miles on the clock!  It's a 1.8 gallon tank and reserve means about .5 gallons left.

The rest of the afternoon was mostly cloudy and cool, with occasional spots of warm sun when clouds permitted it.