Unsettling day with my bike back.. the shortest and craziest ride

[mothra]

Short and crazy ride

So I took my bike in to do a number of things I was not accomplishing well by myself. (I have 3 weeks of wrenching under my belt here OK so) I took it in. I could not get the timing with the Claymer manual, it was consistently off three sprockets the two times I attempted it on the cam chain. I could not remove the intake manifold bolts with my wussy excuse of an impact wrench (not pneumatic) and was just stripping, so I stopped and had them remove them for me and install some fresh ones, and I have an electrical nightmare that I cannot fix for the life of me. It was time to seek some professional help as these were beyond my newly acquired skill level.

So very excited and for the price of a pneumatic impact driver, I got my bike back with all of these things accomplished. So off I went to pick up my very ornery bike who has been sitting at the shop for 2 weeks now while they work on these items. I got her back and she is running great. The new rubber is installed, the intake leak is fixed and the idle is smooth. The top end is quieter, the vibration is gone, and the cam chain tensioner is no longer leaking. They have also said, we have tested it out a few times extensively and believe your electrical is good to go. Bust out a meter, and we go over the stator, its good, and in spec, regulator, good charging nicely, and they show me what had been done to the electrical. Seems to be in great shape. Horray!!! Great lets top her off an enjoy a nice easy going ride in this nice weather.

Yep stop at the gas station and give her some gas. Start her right up and ride off to go back to work for a bit to finish some stuff. On the way there, great the battery is not charging again. Seriously? It was JUST working JUST working. I mean I had gone through everything several times, by two different people at this point. I am hoping that the battery just crapped with the stain of having all of these electrical issues that we are trying to sort out.

Anyhow she died on the way very near my house, stuck at the gas station I usually top off at. (Another one, not the same one I used). The batteries so dead, that you couldn’t even push start it. I call the shop, apologize for being a pain in the ass, and ask if they could help me out because I am stuck 6 blocks away. They were great, send the mechanic out to take a look. At least he is as dumbfounded as I am, and we ran through the gauntlet of tests, and everything is totally hosed, no longer in spec.
Anyhow before he got there, I hear this bike coming down and it backfires twice and sputters into the same gas station. Dies in the exact same spot mine did. Crazy… The owner gets off fiddles for a few minutes and gets her Triumph going again.

Not 3 minutes later another biker comes around from the opposite direction, sputtering, his bike is dying. He calls some friends, who show up. Mess with his carbs a bit, chit chat, and ride off.

It was like the stranded biker twilight zone.

So anyhow I load my bike up on his truck to get taken back. My uncle shows up for a ride, and as we were heading off, same street section but in a different side of the street, a biker on a smaller dirt bike non street legal, zips through two cars back to back at a light, he pulls out didn’t even look, has no gear on, no helmet, short, a tee-shirt, and converse sneakers. Gets clipped by a Trailblazer, which hits his front sends him flying and the bike and pieces go everywhere. He somehow managed to get back up, and what did he do? Runs over to the bike and waves off the three people getting out of their cars to help him. The Trailblazer drives off too busy to be bothered of course after nearly inflicting serious and or lethal injury which was just ridicules. He gets up and hobbles over to….. yep that same gas station.

Sever people go over to ask him if he needs any help.
That was the shortest ride and the craziest day.

Wow I am SHOCKED that the guy who got hit was OK. Dang… That was crazy scary. I could not believe that the car only hit the bike and not him. He was super lucky. Stupid but lucky, if that isn’t a reminder to ride aware and safe and wear some friggen gear I don’t know what is.

No this really did happen today…

Weird…

Well on the up side, the engine maintenance is done and it runs great when its getting juice, and I didn't totally destroy engine components via bad timing and we didn't witness anyone getting seriously injured or killed, thank good.

[Rover]

Twilight Zone, What actually was wrong with your bike?

[sedelen]

I hope to never have a day like that.

[mothra]

Twilight Zone, What actually was wrong with your bike?

Good question...

I know that I killed the battery while trying to diagnose the electrical system, with two blown regulators, and a dead stator. The battery was discharged several times down below 25% (5 times at least) So that battery is done. I am having them load test it

But I also think that there may be a short/leak somewhere draining it or shorting those out since the stators output is now OK with a new one, and the regulator works for a few days before blowing, during that time the battery does charge alright.

I will have to replace the battery under warranty and see where I stand, hopefully there is an easy fix, I am about to wire snip the thing to shreads
But then I would have a lot of re-wiring to do... So I had some one else with more rational look at it and see if they catch anything.

Hope that I don't have to get another reg/rec and that this one lived through the ordeal. The funny thing was that they were sure it was fixed and rode it around several days. The mechanic said he didn't believe how much attention the old GS's drew. It was nice to see some one else baffled by the whole ordeal. So I didn't feel so alone in my woes. But that was how I felt about it. I can usually fix electrical problems right away, traditionally. But not on her, for some reason there is something going on there.

It was funny because the bike didn't want to start for me when leaving that day. She knew. Hey I am not leaving... Your not done here.

I think that I will avoid that area though, just out of superstition.

[mothra]

I hope to never have a day like that.

It was pretty un eventful for me, but seeing that guy get hit really stuck with me. That was crazy. I was glad that I had a nice peaceful coast, right into the gas station. If your bike dies, that would be the way to have that happen. Nice gentile glide into a perfect spot out of the way.

[bonanzadave]

I hope to never have a day like that.

Dont ever go to that gas station Its jinxed !!

[jaywelchy]

Wow .. that is one day the planets definately lined up. Yikes. Thats way to much going on for me to handle! Ha ... Im not superstitious, but there was a dark cloud of sorts hangin around, and the kid in converse?? I can say all kinds of negatives ... but I had my indestructable days .. and rode bikes with no gear at all. Its a wonder how any of us make it to adulthood!!


Oh, and glad you got your bike up and running ... Now just dont ride it anymore around the Bermuda Triangle gas station!

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Was Rod Serling hanging out at that gas station? That's some pretty weird stuff right there.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[TheCafeKid]

Good question...

I know that I killed the battery while trying to diagnose the electrical system, with two blown regulators, and a dead stator. The battery was discharged several times down below 25% (5 times at least) So that battery is done. I am having them load test it

But I also think that there may be a short/leak somewhere draining it or shorting those out since the stators output is now OK with a new one, and the regulator works for a few days before blowing, during that time the battery does charge alright.

I will have to replace the battery under warranty and see where I stand, hopefully there is an easy fix, I am about to wire snip the thing to shreads
But then I would have a lot of re-wiring to do... So I had some one else with more rational look at it and see if they catch anything.

Hope that I don't have to get another reg/rec and that this one lived through the ordeal. The funny thing was that they were sure it was fixed and rode it around several days. The mechanic said he didn't believe how much attention the old GS's drew. It was nice to see some one else baffled by the whole ordeal. So I didn't feel so alone in my woes. But that was how I felt about it. I can usually fix electrical problems right away, traditionally. But not on her, for some reason there is something going on there.

It was funny because the bike didn't want to start for me when leaving that day. She knew. Hey I am not leaving... Your not done here.

I think that I will avoid that area though, just out of superstition.

Id start by getting out a wiring diagram and tracing everything back, especially related to the charging system and fuseblock leads. Something is putting out an awful lot of resistance to burn up stators and RR like that.
Its also possible your battery is just toast, but id look into the connectors for the wiring. Corrosion leads to resistance, which leads to heat, which leads to fryin things.

Have your mech, if you dont want to do it, wire the stator DIRECTLY to the RR, and the output of the RR DIRECTLY to the battery with an in-line 30 amp blade type fuse holder. This will bypass the entire harness and any crappy connections therein which could be contributing to your problems. This is a pretty common solve on here. If he's/they've been using the stock wiring, there is a redundant loop from one of the stator legs, up to the headlamp and back that used to be used when you could turn off the headlamp, but when they got rid of that switch, they didnt get rid of the loop, so you have this extra wiring running around that one leg of the stator has to push through, and more connectors mean more invitations for corrosion to build up. What I suggested above will eliminate all of that, and you'll feed your charge output directly to the RR, and then directly to the battery.

Also, if your replacement RR has a 6th wire (commonly, a "sense" wire, used to sense voltage where-ever it was hooked up..used to aid the RR in deciding whether or not the battery needs more juice) and its hooked up somewhere that either isnt switched power, or someplace that doesnt have a lot of voltage drop, you're going to have problems.

If its not on a switched power source, it will slowly drain the battery even when the bike is off. If left for a couple days, it may drain it enough to make even bump starting impossible.
If its on a circuit thats got a lot of voltage drop due to corrosion on contacts, or simply too long of a run from source power, it may OVER charge the battery, as the sense wire is not seeing enough voltage. Overcharging is bad as it will boil off the fluid in your battery, blow bulbs, over-tax the RR, etc etc..


Hope this helps some. I hate wiring myself, but these things tend to be pretty simple to figure out if you start from one end and work to the other with a diagram... NOT like a car...wow what a nightmare...

[mothra]

Thanks. Didnt even notice the wire loop. That's funny, well you could put a switch in there i guess...

Luckily the shop rescued me from the Bikemuta Triangle down there. I am having them look into issue, I ordered some connectors. Going to get a load test on the battery and see if it needs replacement, and probably some more troubleshooting on the electrical side.

It was working for a few hours that morning and was tested, then when I received it there was no juice in the battery after a rough cold start after that who knows, I don't think that a battery that is bad is conducive to testing, but it appears that the R/R was fried during that time. Hopefully that is ok but there was only .5 volts difference on it during the test. Stator and sense wire seamed ok, and we're in spec, the sense wire had the correct battery voltage on it which should have triggered a charge. The bike would not stay running however with out the jumper battery connected. (would be hard to ride with that in your lap lol). The jumper battery was fully charged and we didn't have enough time to notice a severe drain on it running or not but I didn't see any significant voltage changes on it while it was running. That connected in parallel to the dead battery we should have noticed a chart up on it. Stator output was fine. The new R/R was very warm but I could not find the part that smelled hot. I'm sure there was enough damage to quickly find it. The battery installed would not hold a charge and so the bike died with out the jumper battery, and we towed it back for some more work. Worked fine for two days of test riding it around which they periodically checked out all of the connections on it. The battery was still full, didn't look like anything was boiling on it, but it was drained several times which is good for killing batteries quickly.

Will find out more this week I am sure. The price of electrical parts stings a bit after a few times buying a new R/R twice. Thought for sure that some clean up and a new stator and R/R would have it licked.

Oh well what can you do with problem children....

Probably just wanted some more experienced rider action...

I hate looking for intermittent electrical issues. If they can't find it I'm hooking up my scope with a data logger to pinpoint where and when it shorts or drops voltage out.

(edited for lack of typing skills on an iPad)

[1_v8_merc]

You might as well begin studying up on the charging systems now, lol.
90% of the shops out there don't know Jack about these bikes.
(so consider yourself lucky if you found one)

[mothra]

Ouch! LOL

Hey hey, if there is a shop out there that could solve the electrical mystery... That would be the place!

There are some good places out there you know...

I'm not an expert mechanic by any means, so even a little troubleshooting would help tremendously.

You guys just have to know where to look. I have this area that has Auto body shops, mechanics, specialty car restoration, and auto parts distributors all conglomerated together. Everything is pretty much locally owned, and if they can't help you, there is usually some one that they can refer you to right across the street which has that as a specialty, and they have reasonable prices. Not a shop down there that I can complain about.