Jump to content

Yamaha Super Tenere ABS Disable Switch


Nate J.

Disclaimer: You disable your ABS at your own risk. Damage to yourself, or your bike, resulting from this modification either during the modification process itself, or while riding with ABS disabled is solely your responsibility. Ok, now that that BS is behind us lets get to the modification.

Lets get right down to it!

It's really simple actually - the basic premise is that you want to be able to defeat the ABS when riding off-road or on loose surfaces to decrease your stopping distance, allow you to lock up the rear, etc., but we are not going to get into off-road riding techniques in this article. The simplest way to defeat the ABS is to simply pull the ABS Motor fuse, but that's a pain. You have to take off a body panel, remove the fuse, re-install the body panel, and then not lose the fuse. There is a safe way to accomplish this electronically however, without risk of damage to the bike's electronics.

Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 10.28.08 PM.png

Here's what you'll need:

  • A fused single pole double throw (SPDT) relay such as the one found here: http://www.autotoys.com/x/product.php?productid=18599#tabs . You don't have to use a fused relay as we are installing all our circuitry after the factory ABS motor fuse, but I’m anal and like to fuse my relay contacts.

  • An on off switch of your choice. This can be handlebar mounted, chassis mounted, whatever. The main thing is it simply needs to be an on/off switch (not momentary)

  • Some heat shrink tubing big enough to fit over the .250 connectors

  • About four feet of 12 gauge stranded wire.

  • Three pieces of 16 gauge stranded wire in 1 foot lengths in 3 colors (Red/Black/Yellow)

  • One short bolt, locknut, and washers to mount the relay

  • Connectors and rubber seals for the super-top-secret, unused, stock, auxiliary light plug located under the lower right cover near the stock toolkit location. These can be sourced from your friendly Yamaha dealer and cost less than a dollar if not free. There are two plugs stashed just to the left of the stock toolkit location. One is triangular and has three connections that don’t go anywhere, and one is square and has four connections that don’t go anywhere. Take the male side of the, white, three connection plug down to your Yamaha dealer and ask for the connectors and rubber seals needed to complete the male side of this plug. (The four connector plug is for Yamaha accessory grip heaters).

02 PDM Handgrip plug 1_annotated.jpg

Once you have your shopping list fulfilled let’s get all our materials ready.

First we need to remove the insulation off the three .250 12 AWG female quick disconnects. Simply use a pair of needle nose pliers to twist, loosen, and pry the insulation off the stem. We don’t want any insulation on these connectors

Cut two 3” pieces of heat shrink tubing large enough to fit over the 12 AWG Male quick disconnect

Remove the wires and connectors 87, 87a, and 30 from your relay socket. Do this by inserting a small screwdriver into the hole near the connector (from the plug side), pushing in on the screwdriver while pulling the wire out from the rear

02 ABS Relay Mount_Annotated.jpg

02 ABS Relay Remove Wire.jpg

Cut two pieces of your 12 gauge wire to about two feet each. Strip both ends of each wire back about 1/4 inch.

Crimp or solder two of the .250 12 AWG female quick disconnects onto each end of one wire.

Crimp or solder one of the .250 12 AWG female quick disconnects, and the one .250 12 AWG male quick disconnect onto the other two foot length of wire.

NOTE: When attaching the wire onto the connectors make sure the end of the wire does not protrude past the sleeve of the connector as this will interfere with the locking mechanism inside the sockets later. Slide both 3” pieces of heat shrink over the wire with the male/female disconnects.

02 ABS Wire Solder.jpg

Snap the female end of your female/male wire into the relay socket #87a (Normally Closed) from the rear.

Snap one of the female ends of your female/female wire into the relay socket #30 (Common) from the rear. You will not be using terminal #87 (Normally Open) - leave this removed wire out of the socket. If this wire from terminal #87 is left in place 12VDC will be present on this lead when your ABS is disabled.

Install the relay onto the relay socket. Sometimes the new female disconnects won’t snap into the socket properly. Don't worry too much about this - just hold the wires into the socket as your push the relay into the socket and ensure a full connection on all leads of the relay to socket.

Strip both ends of your 1 foot lengths of 16 gauge wire back about 1/4 inch. Crimp or solder the small spades you got from your friendly Yamaha dealer onto one end of each of these wires. Insert them fully into the sockets in the plug from the rear paying special attention to match the colors with the colors in the female end of the socket on the bike (Yellow to stripe). You can grasp the connector ends inside the plug with a small needle nose pliers to help pull the spade connectors into the socket. We won’t be using the red wire, but make it anyway for future use and cap off the end. Slide the rubber seals over the wires and down into the holes in the plug after you have inserted the spades into the plug fully. It would also be a good idea to heat shrink the three wires together and make your own harness to clean it all up.

Now you are done with prep - remove the lower right, plastic body cover from the motorcycle to expose the battery and motorcycle's wiring. (the picture shows the upper cover removed as well - this is not necessary)

06 PDM Packed 3.jpg

Disconnect your battery! You may think you can do the rest of this without doing so, but all it takes is one slip of a screwdriver, or one dropped wire in just the right place and you have blown fuses or worse. Save yourself the headache and Murphy’s law and just disconnect the battery.

If you haven’t already done so, remove the factory Yamaha toolkit, throw it over your shoulder, and create your own to store in your luggage. The factory toolkit for just about any motorcycle is a bauble thrown in by the manufacturer to say it’s there, and is close to worthless. There are many articles on the topic of what you need in your own toolkit. We will be using the factory toolkit’s storage location for our relay location. if you insist on keeping the toolkit, there are other places under this cover you can place your relay - proceed as desired.

Locate the white plastic connector between the two 30A fuses just above the battery, depress the release catch, and unplug the connector. The large, 12 gauge, red wire feeding into this connector is the 12VDC supply to the ABS motor. (see picture below)

Using a pair of snips, carefully cut a slit back in the black insulation around this wiring harness a couple inches to give you room for future steps. Be very careful not to nick or cut the insulation of the wires in the harness.

Examine the plug side of this connector. note the location of the connector for the 12 gauge wire. There is a plastic catch inside this plastic connector that locks the metal connector from being removed. If you insert a small, flat blade screwdriver into the plug side of the connector you want to release, and wiggle it around a bit you will release the catch and be able to remove the connector. There is really no way to take a picture of this, so you’ll have to experiment until you get the 12 gauge red wire and it’s connector removed. In the picture the white plug is still plugged in - yours won’t be. I was experimenting when I took this picture, so my plug was plugged in.

01 ABS Motor Lead.jpg

Insert the female connector coming from #30 of your relay socket (Common) into the white plug that you just removed the connector from. Push the female connector into the socket until it snaps into place

Insert the male connector coming from #87a of your relay socket (Normally Closed) into the female connector of the wire going to the ABS motor

02 ABS Wire Plug New Wire_annotated.jpg

02 ABS Wire Connect.jpg

Slide one piece of heat shrink over this connection, heat to shrink, then slide the second piece of heat shrink over the first - heat to shrink. We want lots of protection here.

02 ABS Wire Route.jpg

Install your on/off switch of choice, and route the wires down to the area where you’ve chosen to house your relay.

Plug your newly made 3 pin wiring harness into the factory auxiliary light harness. Again, make sure you plug this in correctly and match red to red, yellow to stripe, etc. If this plug is already used find another source of ignition switched 12VDC and ground for the next steps

02 PDM Handgrip plug 3.jpg

Connect one of the two leads coming from your on/off switch to #85 of your relay socket (Coil).

Connect the other of the two leads coming from your on/off switch to the black wire (ground) coming from the factory auxiliary light harness you made.

Connect the yellow wire from the factory auxiliary light harness (switched 12VDC) to #88 of your relay socket (Coil).

02 ABS Relay 1.jpg

If you chose to install your relay in the toolkit location, drill a small hole in the flange about midway up the rear portion of the toolkit’s cubby to mount the relay to. Run your Bolt, washers, and lock nut through the relay and hole to secure.

02 ABS Relay Hole_annotated.jpg

Carefully stuff the wiring into the toolkit cavity and secure with your preferred method. You can use a zip tie or even use the factory rubber bungy that held the toolkit in. Re-stuff the factory hand grip and auxiliary light plugs into the cavity where you found them behind the factory toolkit location.

That’s it - your done! Reconnect your battery and enjoy.

The way this is wired you can safely leave your ABS switch in the closed position when you turn off and start the bike. there will be no parasitic draw from the relay's coil during power off as we used the switched 12VDC from the bike to the coil of the relay. As soon as you turn the bike on, and if your switch is closed, the ABS will disable. To re-enable the ABS you will have to open the switch, turn off the bike, and restart the bike.

Enjoy!


User Feedback

Recommended Comments



Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...

×
×
  • Create New...