Hi everyone.
First time poster and a quick introduction.
Got my first 2005 V-strom DL650 3 months ago. I commute from Santa Monica to Burbank, about 50 miles round-trip. The bike is awesome. Strong and heavy enough for LA highway speeds, narrow enough for lane splitting. The commute with a car is 45 min - 90 min (one way) depending on traffic, with the Strom it is 25-35 min, and full of fun. (I use 405, 101 and 134)
I was going to get a BMW F650. Then by luck I got a chance to drive this DL650. Fell in love with it instantly, I don't even remember how the F650 looks anymore.
Few weeks ago the fuse started to blow out when I pulled the front brake. The full instrument panel went dead plus the signals, rear lights and brake lights. I isolated the problem down to the brakes. Either brake was pulled the fuse blew. Went searching online and find a great article about a wire routing flaw. Long story short I thought I would give back something to the community by documenting my fix.
1. Take off the left side panel.
2. Locate the U shape metal piece seen in the photo. It has sharp inner edges, that is responsible for cutting and shorting the white/black brake light wires.
3. I used a plastic pen for a tube. I cut the tube along the side and put over the wires to protect them from future abrasions.
4. Also there is a plastic rail seen in the photos. Route the plastic tube behind the rail so it will not get in touch with the metal edge.
That's it problem fixed. Hope this writeup will help other strommers to fix a short problem similar to this.
U shaped metal piece.
Wires cut by the sharp edges of the metal piece.
Plastic tube (pen)
Wires routed inside the plastic tube.
Plastic routing rail.
Wires nicely hidden in the plastic tube plus routed behind the plastic rail far away from the sharp metal.