I'll post it in full on here, it might help someone in the future, be moved to Technical or whatever. It's not "stolen" I wrote it anyway.

Ignore the 5 year part, it was written a few years ago

The 1999-2000 (FI with analogue gauges) models are prone to a fault within the loom. Symptoms are the FI flashing or staying steadily on for no apparent reason, the bike can still run but can also cut out without warning. You can also get the FI light coming on when you use other electrical items e.g. indicators, brake lights, horn etc. The problem gets worse with time, cuts out more often and then eventually totally shuts down.
The cause is a test block that comes out of the loom and is used when the bike is first built to test the various electrical systems, when done it is just taped up onto the side of the loom never to be used again, you wont find it on any wiring diagram in the official Honda or Haynes manuals.
The cure is a loom replacement which is covered by Hondas 5 year loom warranty or do it yourself if the bike is over 5 years old, the cost of an official Honda loom is in the hundreds
The cost of DIY is minimal and these are the two methods you can use-

Remove seat and rear cowling,take rear tank bolts out and raise the back of
the tank a few inches to give you some room to get at various connectors DISCONNECT THE BATTERY. This is the location of the connector a mound of insultation tape on the loom just in front of the left side rear passenger footpeg.
Attachment 424
Disconnect the nearby electrical connectors including the main earth wire just under the back of the tank as it will give you a bit more room to work as the loom is pretty tight at this point
loom2.JPG
Cut away the insulation and this is the connector, not a straight through male and female block to join wires up but a dead end 20 pole connector with 19 connected wires within the block.
loom3.JPG
Took the thing apart but it took a bit of persuading as the corrosion was binding it and this is what I ended up with, doesn't show very well but well furred up
loom4.JPG

Used contact cleaner, soft and brass brushes, emery cloth and needle file to clean the male and female contacts and it came up quite good
loom5.JPG
After cleaning, doused both parts in ignition sealer(Holts puts on a clear plastic coat), put them back together, covered the outside with it as well, followed by a spray of silicone grease. Taped it all up and instead of putting it under the loom where it becomes the lowest point and collects all the moisture (no wonder it fails) cable tied it to the subframe rail just above the loom making it the highest point.
loom6.JPG
Put everything back together after spraying and silicone greasing every connector I could see.
This worked for me for 3 months then the FI light started coming on again with the brake light, other people have done it and had no further problem to date, I think it all depends how far gone the connector has gone with corrosion when you do it so I went to Plan B

I ballsed up the first attachment above (414) this is what it should have shown
loom1.JPG


PLAN B
This is the hardwire method that you may want to use first rather than last as it is a more permanent fix.
The block has 20 poles, 19 wires go into it and within the male portion of the block it joins one row of 10 on the one side (all green earth related wires)and 3 lots of 3 on the other side with one unused terminal. All confirmed with a multimeter.
Cut the wires off the connector on the 3x3 side first..they are in their own colours so you don't get to mix them up.
When I stripped the insulation off the copper wire was black for a fair way up, there isn't really enough length to try and cut them back to perfect shiny copper so I cleaned them with a small wire brush and contact cleaner. Soldered the three wires together then used 2 layers of heatshrink tubing to seal them
hardwire3.JPG
hardwire4.JPG
For the main block of 10 the easiest way is to leave the main thicker earth on its own, solder the remaining 9 into three blocks of three. Used a small piece of heatshrink to hold all of them together then dipped them into a "thimble" full of heated/melted solder, sprayed a bit of water on it to cool it down and ended up with all ten soldered together.
Heatshrinked them, covered everthing in silicone grease and taped everything up to the main loom using self amalging rubber tape to seal it.
hardwire5.JPG
Started first time, FI light hasn't come on and hopefully thats it. I can see that when it does start to go you might as well hardwire it. If damp has got into the terminals it has also got into the actual wire and connections as well which you can't clean up so it is going to go again anyway.
Fairly easy to do, just take your time, it can be done on your own as I did but would have been easier to have an extra pair of hands to hold the wires in the right position when you are soldering.

Been there, done that!

Here's a link to the fix I did a few months back. Pictures are clear
Wire Loom Fix - Public Discussion Forums

*Edit: the pictures in the above link are no longer available, unfortunately.*

much better pics, in my defence I was a digi camera virgin when I did mine about 3 year ago.

I used your write up to start with, so thank you! I just tested the wire connections to make sure.

Porter

The "problem" has started to rear it's head now on later bikes in the UK. The test connector was not removed from 01 but moved back a bit further up the loom, it's still left hand side but now close to the starter relay. Looks like Honda just thought moving it from the lowest point would fix everything...yeah right
So if anyone gets similar problems to the 99-00 as above it is worth bearing in mind, it's apparently still obvious, a big ball of tape on the loom, looks like it all depends on who tapes it up and how well they do it as to whether you get the problems or not

You show up in the funniest places Bez

I did this for HDXX and it worked great. Thanks for the fix.

I could not post in the tech part.

I was going to do the loom fix, I took the cap off the wire connector and it is clean no corrsion.

what do I do now? go ahead and do the fix? should I solder the wire while I am at it?

If it's all clean, put some dielectric grease on the plugs and tape it back up really well with the plug positioned on top with the backside of the wired connector pointing downward so it will not hold water, if any gets in.

Or if your anal, solder it up

Mine started flickering on yesterdays ride. Going to go through the steps outlined above sometime this week. Glad you all took the trouble to post your fixes.

Thank you!

it is the fix your FI light comming on. it works.

Originally Posted by Bezzer

The cure is a loom replacement which is covered by Hondas 5 year loom warranty or do it yourself if the bike is over 5 years old, the cost of an official Honda loom is in the hundreds
The cost of DIY is minimal and these are the two methods you can use-

Shouldn't this be covered by Honda in a recall?

Originally Posted by Bezzer

I'll post it in full on here, it might help someone in the future, be moved to Technical or whatever. It's not "stolen" I wrote it anyway.

Ignore the 5 year part, it was written a few years ago

The 1999-2000 (FI with analogue gauges) models are prone to a fault within the loom. Symptoms are the FI flashing or staying steadily on for no apparent reason, the bike can still run but can also cut out without warning. You can also get the FI light coming on when you use other electrical items e.g. indicators, brake lights, horn etc. The problem gets worse with time, cuts out more often and then eventually totally shuts down.
The cause is a test block that comes out of the loom and is used when the bike is first built to test the various electrical systems, when done it is just taped up onto the side of the loom never to be used again, you wont find it on any wiring diagram in the official Honda or Haynes manuals.
The cure is a loom replacement which is covered by Hondas 5 year loom warranty or do it yourself if the bike is over 5 years old, the cost of an official Honda loom is in the hundreds
The cost of DIY is minimal and these are the two methods you can use-

Remove seat and rear cowling,take rear tank bolts out and raise the back of
the tank a few inches to give you some room to get at various connectors DISCONNECT THE BATTERY. This is the location of the connector a mound of insultation tape on the loom just in front of the left side rear passenger footpeg.
Attachment 424
Disconnect the nearby electrical connectors including the main earth wire just under the back of the tank as it will give you a bit more room to work as the loom is pretty tight at this point
Attachment 416
Cut away the insulation and this is the connector, not a straight through male and female block to join wires up but a dead end 20 pole connector with 19 connected wires within the block.
Attachment 417
Took the thing apart but it took a bit of persuading as the corrosion was binding it and this is what I ended up with, doesn't show very well but well furred up
Attachment 418

Used contact cleaner, soft and brass brushes, emery cloth and needle file to clean the male and female contacts and it came up quite good
Attachment 419
After cleaning, doused both parts in ignition sealer(Holts puts on a clear plastic coat), put them back together, covered the outside with it as well, followed by a spray of silicone grease. Taped it all up and instead of putting it under the loom where it becomes the lowest point and collects all the moisture (no wonder it fails) cable tied it to the subframe rail just above the loom making it the highest point.
Attachment 420
Put everything back together after spraying and silicone greasing every connector I could see.
This worked for me for 3 months then the FI light started coming on again with the brake light, other people have done it and had no further problem to date, I think it all depends how far gone the connector has gone with corrosion when you do it so I went to Plan B

Beezer,

well thank you for that, i bought a 00 blackbird 2 months ago, 8k miles on it, not used much, but garaged, the second day i got it, the damn thing wouldnt start, had the aa out and all, couldnt find anything, pushed it and it started, the FI light comes on now and again does nothing to bike (yet) but it is annoying, looks like i have the problem you speak of, will try your cure to see what happens after that i assume its a loom, i take it the new ones DONT have the bad connector? the previous owner hadnt used the bike in 6months and said he knew nothing of the faults i had, thought it was a loosely mounted power commander but after that fxed same thing, this posts has been an eye opener many thanks.

Regards,
Derek
Dublin