[BullettuPaandi]

In all honesty, a more befitting title would be: "Making up for my negligence towards my XPulse".

Prologue:

Just after buying an XPulse 200 4V two years ago, I remember clocking over 3500km within the first two and a half months & checking in for third service in the third month- I took the advice of a mechanic in the showroom to bring the bike in for second service at 1500km, instead of the factory-recommended '3000km or 6 months'. Back then I used to commute 60km/weekday and simply ride around visiting places, exploring new trails and roads once in a weekend or two. All this changed soon enough and since, I haven't had to commute and have been out-of-station more often. So, I only managed to ride for about 1500km in the rest of one and three quarters years! In both circumstances, the bike has never caused any issues- only required chain lubrication for maintenance & has always started without any drama even after months of leaving unattended. I now feel like this has slightly spoiled me and that I'd long been taking it for granted.

While there's never been an issue with me leaving the bike unattended, I obliviously triggered one: Little over a month ago, monkeys managed to break a part of security grill in my house. While getting this fixed by a local welder, I decided to add some more protection to avoid snakes and squirrels getting inside. After a week, I noticed a squirrel under a scorching sun trying and failing to crawl into its regular shelter-spot. I couldn't help but enjoy watching this with a smirk- but as it'd turn out, that little devil had been eating my bike from the inside out all along! Shortly after, when I tried to start the bike after a wash, I noticed that I didn't hear the fuel pump 'whirr'. I thought maybe a fuse got rusted out in the rains; and when they turned out to be fine, I started looking for if there's a relay only to find a hay-nest hiding this:



After a good while of hitting my head against every wall in the house, I decided to do the repair myself; just to put myself through it and learn. I called the Hero Showroom that I bought the bike from, to order a new harness. The mechanic asked me to send a picture of the damage, to see if it's fixable with just some new wires. Although I had no hopes for it, I obliged just to appreciate that gesture. After confirming that fixing is not viable, he advised me to bring the bike to the showroom and told me that they can only order parts to the showroom's address, not to mine. But, as I was fixated on replacing the harness myself, I neglected his advice this time and asked him if a soft copy of the service manual was available. To my surprise, he told me that they only receive training from Hero and are not provided service manuals. This was a bit of a let down, but I still proceeded with my decision and ordered a Wiring Harness from TheSparesCompany, that had COD as an option, and received a genuine part a while after. I tried my best to look around the stock bike and managed to label almost all connectors of the harness:


Disclaimer: This is just from me figuring out what each connector could be for. This may not be accurate (or) The connectors may have other functions than what they are labelled as.

Note 1: I have no idea what 'ABZ' is. There's a sealed rubber housing on the bike next to relays, the connector end of which has 'ABZ' printed on it. So I've just labelled here as that for identification. I also have no idea, what the two 'connected' connectors are for; I have no way of knowing, as in the factory harness these were just connected to each other. Perhaps these have some function in a different model that shares this same part.
Note 2: As this is my first time posting, I kept forgetting that I had to take pictures for this post while I was working on the bike. So, I've added pictures I took post the job- pictures from re-installing panels added to removing panels section, for instance- for the sake of continuity. Because of this, you may notice some inconsistencies- such as, the bike being dirty, then cleaner, then dirty back again. Consider this a rookie mistake and kindly bear with it.
Note 3: I've decidedly omitted details that can be found on the user manual. So, in case you are reading this to do a similar job on your bike and find any detail missing, check the user manual.

Harness Replacement:

Removal of Old Harness:

Firstly, I had already removed the battery after noticing the damage, just in case Mr.Menace Mouth makes a visit again and somehow manages to short himself to Squirrel 65. Now, to remove the existing harness, the fuel tank and some other parts need to be removed first. I started with draining the fuel on the tank. With a fuel pump sealing the fuel line to the injector, this shouldn't be necessary. But I had a full tank of 13L; so felt it's rather safe to drain the tank and then figure out how to remove it.



I have only watched mechanics siphon (suck fuel out of a tank with a tube); I was a bit reluctant to do so myself and bought this mechanical siphon- basically a bladder with directional flaps that only fold on one side. When pressure is applied air/fluid is pulled from where the flap opens inwards to where the flap opens outwards (w.r.t. the bladder). After about 4-5 presses on the bladder, it managed to drain the fuel fairly quickly- 13L in about two minutes. I also bought a HDPE container to store the fuel. There was some fuel left in the tank- must've been within a litre- but as it wasn't leaking after removing the undermentioned lines, I just let it be. After draining the fuel, I proceeded with removing the tank.



A tank bolt, Evaporative Emission Control (EEC) line, Drain line, Fuel Pump Connector & Injector line need to removed first in order to remove the tank. Just one single bolt on the rear of the tank is what is holding it in place, while the front of the tank rests on and is pushed tight against some rubber cushions/dampers. After the removing side panels, battery and the tank:



A close up of the crime scene and the remains of the criminal's nice little condo. Must've been nice for Mr.Jaws Mini between just about enough warmth from the engine and faint fragrance of fuel intoxicating him after a long day of gnawing on copper, rubber and metal! Fortunately, just a near miss on the ECU. Only the rubber housing is damaged and not the actual component.



After cursing him for a while, I decided to work on the front first, as it was fairly simple. Two front-facing bolts of the four on the headlamps bracket needs to come off- one holding the headlamps and the other holding the LCD. The connector for the LCD is underneath it, which can be removed after pulling the red tab downwards. I also, took off the wind-shield bolts to give myself some extra room to work with.




Stock front routing. After removing the front sock connections, the white push-lock zip-tie needs to be detached from the frame to remove the harness from the front of the motorcycle. Also, the rubber cushions/dampers visible just above that are what the tank rests on and pushed against.

After removing the harness from the front, I ran into a bit of a problem. A bolt holding a connection on the Rectifier & Regulator (RR), was so tight that I've only managed to strip it while using the ring end of a proper-sized Stanley spanner. Looks like the assembler drove it the hell into the nut with a power tool. I tried all I could with increasing the arm length, using a hammer, etc.; all ended in vain. So, I just decided to cut the connection on the old harness & cut and tape the connection on the new harness when installing. It was indeed a bit unnerving to cut a brand new harness, but with the bolt this stripped, only other choice was to order a bolt extractor, wait for about a week and then do it right with a new bolt. I wasn't that patient; so, chose the scissors.



At this point, I had spent way too much time on that bolt than I should've. It was starting to get dark; so I decided to remove connections from the rear. Though the connections themselves are fairly simply, getting to the connections on the rear is a bit tricky. So, I wanted to be done with that, when there still was enough light.



The factory routing on the rear passes through this narrow section. The harness can be removed from the rear only after the rear fenders under the harness are dropped. I had until this point dismissed buying a T-spanner, as I thought the spanner set I already own was enough & as they don't fit inside a regular tool kit. I failed to realise that some bolts are just not accessible with a regular spanner, like in the rear fender cover below. So, I went to the nearest hardware store- about a km away- to buy some cheap tubular spanners for now, which I can use with a screwdriver.



Soon enough I learnt what I get for cheaping-out: the tube spanner broke after removing a grand total of one bolt.



So, I went back to to the hardware store and bought an actual T-spanner and continued the job. In all this drama, I'd completely forgotten to take pictures and it was already dark before I realised that. But, I managed to remove the harness entirely by this day.

[BullettuPaandi]

To completely remove the harness, rear fenders, Air Cleaner Assembly (air box) need to be dropped & the ECU stay needs to come off. The air box and throttle body can also be removed, and connections in the middle of the harness can be made by working from the right side of the motorcycle, where the factory spot for the middle sock of the harness is. But this looked a bit too complicated to me, so I decided to remove the battery case & EEC Canister instead and work from the left side. These are slightly easier to remove and the sock can be put on the factory spot from here as well.



The bolts and nuts on the circled spots need to be taken off to remove the battery case and the EEC canister. A close look of the stock middle sock connections after removing these:



Removing the front sprocket cover is optional; I did just to get a better look and do some house-keeping while I was at it.



Good enough for a side-quest, I suppose. Now to dropping rear fenders & the air box: removing the circled bolts, screws and crankcase vent line in the pictures below is enough to drop both, remove connections from the old harness and connect new ones.





For some reason, Hero has cut a hole in the fender to pass through this silencer mounting point, instead of simply cutting the entire portion off. So, after dropping the fender, the thin end of the fender was hanging on this bolt (I don't have a picture of this; apologies). So, I removed the bolt to let the fender drop completely, so as to not damage the fender by mistake, when working on the rear connections.



Stock Rear Sock Connections after the fenders unscrewed and dropped. These connections and the old harness can be removed from here. But I decided to might as well remove the fenders completely to do some house-keeping. The seat lock and it's cable need to be removed first for that. After taking the seat lock bolt off, removing the rubber plug and then the cable, the tail lamps fender would be free to come off.



After removing the tail lamps fender, further removing the two screws holding the rear indicators fender, would only reveal more house-keeping to do.

[BullettuPaandi]

Installation of New Harness:

After completely removing the old harness, I began installing the new harness. I inserted the rear end of the harness between the frame and the top of the air box, under the ECU stay and welded plate for the tank bolt nut. Notice how I've only removed one of the ECU stay bolts and slightly bent the stay instead of completely removing it as I mentioned earlier? Well, that's because the other bolt was also over-torqued; and now any torque I apply to remove it, is only getting on to the base weld, where the ECU stay mounting plate is welded on to the frame. So, in order to not entirely break the ECU Stay mounting plate, I had to slightly bend the stay to make just about enough room for the ECU connector and fuse box to pass through. Then I started working from the rear; inserting the harness through the factory rear routing, and connecting rear lights accordingly.



Forgot about the USB Charger; so here's a picture from the future.

After being done with the rear connections and re-installing all the fenders, air box and silencer in place, I moved on to the middle part of the harness.



Some connections on the right side. After I was satisfied with the routing and confirming that there's enough slack to make connections on both middle and front parts of the harness, I bent the ECU stay back to position and connected the ECU. Then proceeded with the left side connecctions to complete connecting the middle part of the harness. It's worth noting that from the factory, there's a rather long(300x5mm) re-useable zip-tie holding the harness at slightly left of the ignition coil to the main frame through the hole in the engine hanger bracket below. I didn't notice that it was re-useable and cut it. I didn't have such a long zip-tie either; so, I have used multiple smaller zip-ties, holding the harness to the subframe instead.




Moving towards the front:




Almost used the wrong hardware on the headlamps; this might have damaged the internals, if the bolt came into contanct with it. But fortunately, noticed before making the mistake thanks to the headlamps holder nearby. Finally, moved on to the RR connection. It's not quite perceptible in the pictures, but one of those two wires on the same connector was of a slightly different shade of green. It turned out to be of a different guage. So, I used that to match with the respective one on the harness; individually used heat shrink on the connections then taped them.




Then, installed the tank and connected fuel pump, injector, EEC and drain lines.




Installed the battery and only then did I notice that I had routed the switch wires wrong. These are supposed to be routed along with the clutch and brake cables. When I was connecting from the front, only this made sense as there didn't seem to be any room for cable from above; it looks blatantly weird from the rear though. But being this close to finishing the job, I was willing to call it drishti and move on after checking that it doesn't get in the way while turning. I'll maybe fix it if/when I upgrade the headlamps. Anyway, since there was some fuel in the tank I tried turning the bike on out of curiosity. The fuel pump let out more of a groan than a 'whirr'; clearly it didn't like it. But I was just happy that it finally worked! I then refuelled, this time placing the can on a 'kuthirai' (the tall stool).



Then, when I hit ignition...

'tapsastanmahinA ajAyataikam'
Translation: 'one begot by the virtue of self inflicted torture/ austerity/ heat'

...which is basically one of the Vedic equivalents of

'And then there was light'

I tested if everything worked as intended and let it run for sometime, as I installed the rest: side panels, seat, licence plate, etc. I can only tell if the RR is rectifying and regulating after riding for long enough to drain the battery; but everything else works well.

Epilogue:

All this took about 15 hours for me. This includes: roughly 3 hours to figure out and label the connectors and 3 days of 4 hours each, figuring out how to proceed at each and every step of the process, muscling with bolts made from the heart of a dying star and doing some cleaning as well. So, if you're asking the obvious question that whether it was worth it doing this all by myself, my short answer would be that I don't think I had wasted my time, but I sure hope not to have to do this again. To me, it is worth knowing how to do this- now that I know what exactly to do (hopefully, I've made it easier for others too with this post), I'm confident in saying that should it come to me having to replace the wiring harness again, I can do that within a day; I don't have to depend on a mechanic and wait for a week or two. It is also worth to me that now I have familiarised myself with the bike a little further: For instance, if my crankcase is leaking oil, I now know that there is a vent line connecting to the air box; so I'll check if the line is clogged pressurising the crankcase. I didn't knew of this before, so wouldn't have thought of it. So, I think the learning alone was worth it.

Thanks for reading!

[arunphilip]

Awesome write-up, and meticulously detailed with the numerous photos. Well done!

Changing the wiring harness is quite a daunting task, and I appreciate you taking on that challenge.

I'm sure you're now one with your bike, since you know its innards inside out!

[PistonCrown]

Its a dare step to DIY must say. Hats off to you for completing it successfully.

Just a thought would have crossed my mind temporarily before cutting the wires from new harness where old wire was cut.
You could have spliced them and temporarily connected and to the wiring harness part and finished your job. And then later take it to get the old bolt removed and fixed it. That way your new wiring harness would have remained new and stock without any cuts/Splices.

[BullettuPaandi]

Originally Posted by PistonCrown

You could have spliced them and temporarily connected and to the wiring harness part and finished your job. And then later take it to get the old bolt removed and fixed it. That way your new wiring harness would have remained new and stock without any cuts/Splices.

Ah! Didn't occur to me. Hopefully those heat shrinks & tape hold up well, and won't let me regret it.

[vaibhavyagnik]

Awesome DIY. You basically took apart the full bike, replaced the harness and then put it back in ONE SHOT! That is a great achievement indeed. Kudos!

[VijayAnand1]

BP, exceptionally penned. Been a while since I've come across such engaging and stirring log. The satisfaction of getting it done right, and the feeling thereafter is simply unmatched. On a rather mirthful note, the rodent mishap did yield us one lovely log. Keep your DIYs logged, makes a difference.

Good luck.

Cheers!
VJ

[vivee90]

Power to you brother!

While I am having second thoughts about reworking wiring harness of my son's ride-on car, you showed the spirit by doing it in your ride.
Thank you! This is a motivation

[BullettuPaandi]

Originally Posted by BullettuPaandi

Moving towards the front:

Attachment 2626112

Just a minor correction:

As I was backing up these pictures I noticed that I had mistakenly labelled the O2 Sensor connection as Wheel Speed Sensor in the quoted image, where you can clearly see that the connection goes to the O2 Sensor on the exhaust pipe.

The labelling in the entire harness image is correct though; I seem to have somehow gotten confused while editing this image.