What a beautiful smiley, peterbaron. And yes, that is exactly how I feel when I read the Honda manual.
I realize I have to be more specific, otherwise I am getting branded as a "poking around" nerd without any technical skill. That would be a shame for a proud technician like me. So what am I doing ?
a) I ride anyway, regardless of what the ABS light says or blinks (blink), lived without ABS for 20 odd years,
b) I observe that the light comes on more and more frequently, BUT it also now goes off after a while. It does not come on and off and on ... etc in erratic ways. It's on when I start rolling (as it should), goes off when I reach 4mph (as it should) and then, after a few minutes it comes on, stays on for some turns and miles and then it comes on and stays on for a while. Then it goes off. I'd say, that is really strange.
c) unless the ABS controller sort of integrates over many errors and only changes the light (on or off) after many events (like your dashboard's temperature gauge), ... which I doubt ... what I describe under b) is really strange. ABS reacts on fast signals, when something is odd (or dangerous) it turns itself off and the light on. My theory.
So what did I do, and where do I get stuck:
d) I checked the sensors for cleanliness, position, etc. as described before. And I am still working on that part, step by step.
e) I checked connectors upstream from the sensors as much as possible (2017 bike, 2016 manual), but this came to a stop at the point where the tank needs to be removed (a job for winter !).
f) I read the 2016 manual, every relevant section, but it is now clear that I have to order the newer version. For i) it's a pain to go forth and back in the PDF version (the PDF readers page numbers are 1,2,3,... it cannot find page numbers like 15-40), but also because the manual version I have shows connectors in places where there are no connectors on my bike. That is the main reason I cannot check (yet) power and grounding.
@ m_in_sc's question: the electric schematics show that the sensor signals go to the combination meter, but whether the speed meter might go crazy if any of the wheel sensors is at fault, I cannot tell.
@ Lord popgun's suggestion of reading out the fault code I have not followed up any further. Why ? This section in the manual (page 15-16) lists a number of conditions for which the ABS light might start to "blink", and what to do about it. My ABS light does not blink. At this point the manual gets really fuzzy to read. I cannot explain it right here. But if you put it all together and read it 3 times (detection A vs. detection B, and all the rest) I do mainly see conditions which should not be self-healing. And you have to remember that the pre-start self-diagnosis does work without error every time I start riding.
My thinking at this point is this: wait for new manual, and see if it solves some of the problems described above. Wait for the light to be on permanently or for winter, whatever comes first. Try trouble shooting again.
