My electrical woes surfaced when I stopped for gas and when I tried to start er up I had no juice in the battery. I push started it and went home. I checked the terminals and both were about one full turn loose. I tightened them up and thought I fixed it. Not so, about a week later same thing happens ( shut it off and it won’t restart). Now my battery is the original and is 7.5 years old so I surmise my battery has lived it’s life and I got a new one. Now I fixed it. Wrong! I decided to check the voltage on this new battery and discovered it’s not being charged enough. I also have a problem with flickering lights (Neutral light, Headlight Lightbar speedo, and tach) that has gotten worse. About this time, Carl’s thread (Electrical Woes) comes up and I follow it and do all the tests mentioned. The readings varied a little but this is the jist:
At the battery
Ignition off- 12.2 V
At idle- 12.4 V
At 4000 rpm- 11.8 V
Stator voltage @ 4000 rpm
Between 1-2 35V
1-3 35V
2-3 37V
Resistance
Between 1-2 4 ohms
1-3 3 ohms
2-3 4 ohms
Pin to ground- all three infinite resistance.
I unplugged the R/R and plugged it back in and I got a little better volt readings so I cleaned the plug with electronics spray cleaner and put in new dielectric grease. No improvement.
I went to my dealer to see if he had any ideas and he figered it had to be the R/R. He said he was selling a T100 the next morning but he would give me the R/R off of it to use to see if mine was bad, just get it back to him in the morning. Great, I put it on and there is no change. Now I checked every wire, plug, and connection of any kind, too many for my one finger to type here, and I got no change. I’m now worried about making it to the Nor-Easter Rally and not happy.
Now, yet another beer, and I’m looking over the schematics and I see there is a direct line from the R/R through the #11 fuse to the positive side of the battery so I pull the main fuse (#11) and the spades are light gray, looks like powder, but when I tried to wipe it off I felt a little bump. It had a tiny burn mark on both sides at the same place, It had melted and caused two tiny raised spots. Without my cheater glasses I couldn’t see them they were so small, I took a screw driver and scrapped the high spots off, put it back in and now my readings are:
At the battery
Ignition off- 12.5 V
At idle- 12.8 V
At 4000 rpm- 13.8 V
Stator voltage @ 4000 rpm
Between 1-2 60V
1-3 60V
2-3 60V
Five days of going over everything on the bike and worrying what it’s gonna cost me and it was a fuse. I don’t think anyone would go to the fuse with this problem but now I understand what was happening. I don’t understand the Stator voltage going higher but I don’t care, the battery is being charged and it is fixed. It’s probably rare but it’s easy to check and fix so keep this in mind if your having charging problems.
Now I can get ready for the Rally
