Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Charging Mod Questions

Hi all,

I've left a post on the electrical charging issues thread here but thought it may be better to start my own so as to keep it short.

Well, it looks like my 05 Speedmaster has different coloured wires to that which Mailman has shown us on the photobucket site.

All myconnectors are located under the seat except the one from the regulator/rectifer which is better accessed from the right hand side. Maybe cos I don't have an air box, I don't know?

So before I start looking for other threads or contacting a few other techo chums who hopefully are more familiar with this 10 gauge wire install to increase charging capacity, I need to know which wire I'm targetting from the regulator/rectifier?

My regulator/rectifer has 3 x yellow, 1 x black and 1 x red wires on the exit side of the connector and not the black with the red stripe pictured in Mailman's Photobucket pics. MMMM, What do you think Watson???

Anyone familiar with the wiring of the 05 speedmaster and which colored wire I need to tap into?

Cheers for any help as it would be great to get this one done within the next 2 days as I leave south on Friday.

staffo

Click here for a larger readable version of the diagram below:
link to BIG picture

Thanks Zdenko, I'll have a look at it now.

If my eyeballs didn't hurt so much right now Id make a suggestion but Im not in the right sate of mind...I knew I had that scan so maybe itll help.

Good luck!

Sorry Staffo... I missed you post in that other thread. It is late here and I'm a wee bit inebriated so I can't be of any serious help just now (later for sure!!) but what I can say is you are NOT running enough electrical stuff to drain the battery under normal conditions. Something's amiss... it could be the alternator, r/r, battery or poor connections somewhere. I'll chime in later with a clear(er) head with more concrete ideas on the matter.

Thanks guys. All is fixed. It's getting late here now but did the mod with help from Zdenko and the wiring diagram and confirmed with a multimeter from my son in law. He's a boatbuilder but has had a bit to do with wiring having built his own 6.2m aluminium boat and all it's associated wiring plus a fair dinkum 4wd camper designed for outback Aus conditions. No slouch in other words and the wiring digram from Zdenko confirmed his diagnosis with the meter. I'll give some stats tomorrow.

Most of you are tucked up in bed asleep, so Good Snoozies to ya.

staffo

Glad you got things sorted out Staffo! Looking forward to hearing about what went wrong and how you fixed it.

Yah Staffo, keep us posted. Glad to hear shes up and running.

Hi all, I want to keep this post as short as possible cos I end up writing novels.

In a nutshell my results before and after doing the 10 gauge wire mod with an inline fuse I might add are:

Yesterday before the mod, the best output I could get at idle was 12.3 volts, with it going up to 13.2 volts at about 1400 rpm's. This I might add was with a new battery only 350 klm's earlier and no Iphone gps and music attached .

Today after doing the mod last night and having my bike running for 10 mins to help charge up my battery, at idle the volt metre showed 14.3 volts and 14.7+ at 1400 rpm's.

A little bit of an improvement, wouldn't you think???

To say I wasn't just a little bit thrilled about the outcome would be understating it. This is an excellent and easy mod to do and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Btw, Yesterday I figured the reason the wiring colours were different was because I have an aftermarket Regulator/Rectifier. It didn't really matter though cos the diagram Zdenko put up showed me the brown wire or No 4 (see below)



Was the outgoing wire to the positive side of the battery. The other 4 wires either went to the alternator or the negative terminal of the battery.

So I merely had to match up the corresponding wire it connected to through the connector which happened to be the red wire in my case.

My son in law knew that anyway after having used the multimetre to see which wire gave out a positive and increasing volt reading using the throttle. Something like that anyway and the diagram confirmed his diagnosis so to speak.

I'm now a happy camper as I'm almost certain with the original wiring configuration, my using the Iphone for gps and music as well as always having this light globe continually on, and my having the OEM immobiliser alarm always on, all contributed to too much drain.

In effect, as I was riding along it appears I was slowly flattening the battery to the point where after a couple of days riding, it didn't have enough cranking herbs to start my bike.

Finally, I thought about taking pics along the way to try and explain further to other inexperienced electrophobes like myself what's involved, but I reckon Robert's (Mailman) explanation is as good as they come.

I would suggest others have a think about doing this mod though, particularly if you plan doing any long trips with extra toys potentially draining your battery as it did with me.

Anyway, it appears one of our bike's main gremelins are electrical issues but at least this one's been put to bed for now.

Thanks again to this site and the blokes on it for helping me as without it, I may have ended up with another flat battery half way between Coonabarabran and Stockingbingal (Real Town Names in Aus btw)

staffo

Glad to hear you worked things out. But ummmm, please excuse my denseness but I was having a bit of trouble following EXACTLY what you did. Is this that 'beefier than thou' direct R/R to battery + side heavy gauge wire mod you're talking about?

Keith, the word is Denseness, not density

Maybe I should have written that novel

Yes mate. Eggsackerie.

10 gauge wire with inline fuse direct from R/R to postive side of battery.

Correction duly noted (I'll blame that one on the vino)! Regarding the mod... that's what I figured and ummm, glad to hear it worked out. This is an important mod for all of us!