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At the end of last year my Wonder Wheel started to act up. I don't remember when but this one was put on my bike back when they were replacing the switch clusters under a recall. All functions worked but it started to turn super easy and I could barely feel the detents. I tried to clean it with some contact cleaner but that did nothing to help get the detent feel back. A couple weeks ago I was on a short trip and the WW was a pain to work with. I ordered a new one ($213 before tax) and replaced it yesterday/ today. Mine is the older 2012 version where you have to pull the gas tank to get to the connector. But, I would speculate that the detent mechanism is the same for the newer LinBus style. After I replaced mine, I took the old one apart to see if I could find out what went wrong. (Not sure why thumbnails are in different spots. Tried to correct it but now I'll try to live with it.)
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There's a flat steel "spring" (I'm pointing at it with a T6 driver that was needed to take the wheel apart) that rubs across the detents built into the inside of the wheel (see the triangular humps in the picture below). It looked like the spring was not sticking out where it could rub against the wheel's detents. I bent both of the curved parts of the spring out and when I put the wheel back on it felt very close to how it was when new. I tried to bend them out just a little bit more and broke the spring. Crap!! It broke right at the sharper bent center part of the spring. I had it in my hands when I bent the ends but I think I should have left it in place when bending the 2 curved ends out which may have helped support the center bent section. Had I know how it works and been more careful when adjusting it, I may have saved myself time and effort of dismantle/ installing and the cost of a new one. It may not have lasted very long before it got easy again but now there's no way of knowing. It may be possible to make a new spring but with the new WW paid for and installed, I have very little incentive to figure out how and or what to use. I know service departments hang on to some warranty parts for a period of time before they toss them and maybe a person could run across a WW that stopped functioning properly but the spring is still in good shape.
If you are having the same problem as I did, it might be worth a shot to see if you can fix it or at least get some more mileage out of it before you trade off your bike. >
There's a flat steel "spring" (I'm pointing at it with a T6 driver that was needed to take the wheel apart) that rubs across the detents built into the inside of the wheel (see the triangular humps in the picture below). It looked like the spring was not sticking out where it could rub against the wheel's detents. I bent both of the curved parts of the spring out and when I put the wheel back on it felt very close to how it was when new. I tried to bend them out just a little bit more and broke the spring. Crap!! It broke right at the sharper bent center part of the spring. I had it in my hands when I bent the ends but I think I should have left it in place when bending the 2 curved ends out which may have helped support the center bent section. Had I know how it works and been more careful when adjusting it, I may have saved myself time and effort of dismantle/ installing and the cost of a new one. It may not have lasted very long before it got easy again but now there's no way of knowing. It may be possible to make a new spring but with the new WW paid for and installed, I have very little incentive to figure out how and or what to use. I know service departments hang on to some warranty parts for a period of time before they toss them and maybe a person could run across a WW that stopped functioning properly but the spring is still in good shape.
If you are having the same problem as I did, it might be worth a shot to see if you can fix it or at least get some more mileage out of it before you trade off your bike. >
