Electric Problem

[doconabike]

Hi All. Let me just preface by saying that I did read through the stator papers and I did see the amazing flowchart that you guys made - the only thing is their were multiple warning about if your not competent with electrical do NOT DO IT because of damage to the bike yourself. I have absolutely no experience with electrical so before I recruit a friend I'd like to see if their is an obvious problem with all your collective experiences

I have an 82 gs650g with about 7xxx miles on it.

It started a few days ago, I was riding home with a buddy and for the first time since I got the bike I was accelerated/revving hard. By hard I mean max maybe 7k rpm, and maxed out in 5th going about 60. We rode for about 20 minutes, reached school and went to class. Once class was over come back to the bike, hit the starter and pretty much nothing. Maybe one weak turn. Headlight/neutral indicator all worked. Popstarted the bike, rode home, and charged the battery.

Went riding again today. Bike started up like a champ, ran fine, no problems. About 15 minutes into the ride, I'm in first gear slowing down at a stoplight (going about 6-10 mph) and the bike stalls. I mean engine just dies no shudder or nothing just dies. I coast to a stop, at this point the headlight is still working. I hit the starter, maybe one weak cough. Turn the key off and on again - and none of the electrics work! No headlight, no neutral light nothing. I have no idea what to do at this point, try pop starting it and it doesn't work the way I normally do it (running alongside the bike then hop on). I have my buddy then push me as I'm sitting on a bike, when going slightly downhill we were finally able to get it going again.

Ok a little shaken I decide to turn around and go home. On the ride home, going about 40, see a red light and start slowing down. As I'm slowing down, going about 25 mph, the bike dies again! I coast to a stop. The headlight is still on, but this no matter what we do we can't popstart it. It tries but we can't get it going. Finally, we take the fuses out from headlight/turn signals so just the ignition, starter, and the main fuses were in. We try popstarting it and this time it works, success! The rest of the ride (maybe 10 minutes) was uneventful and I got home.

Now the battery is relatively new (maybe like 4 months). Our theory is that from the hard ride, revving really hard we fried the stator/ regulator rectifier.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance for any help! And sorry for the long post tried to be as thorough as possible.

 

[Guest]

Time to clean all the connections from the battery, grounds and starter. Then take the ground from the starter solenoid and battery and connect it to the ground on the R/R.
Then do the Stator papers.

 

[exbellicus]

If your battery is 4 months old, then you probably just missed the warranty period. If you follow the instructions on the stator papers, and don't veer off what it says to touch, you won't break anything. Good luck!

 

[bonanzadave]

Our theory is that from the hard ride, revving really hard we fried the stator/ regulator rectifier.
Thoughts?

Probably not.

Time to clean all the connections from the battery, grounds and starter.

Probably so. If you have corrosion in the electrical system that added resistance will create heat. That melts connectors, burns wires, and takes out the RR and stator. Spend some time taking the connectors apart, clean them with spray contact cleaner and reassemble using some dielectric grease. Add the extra ground wires like Bill says. You can keep buying batteries, stators and RRs but they wont work until the interconnect is right.

Keep us posted with the results. Good luck.

 

[Nessism]

Clean all the connections like Chef Bill says and run the R/R ground over to the battery negative terminal. The factory R/R ground is poor and a very common source of problem. After that start up the bike and check battery voltage with the engine reving to 3000 rpm - it should be 14.5 volts or higher. If not, you have a charging system problem so get out the Stator Papers.

 

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Just to add, I had a mysterious loss of power one day. Going through the harness I found that one of the coil wires had broken and I was getting spark to only 2 cylinders.

I guess I'm also saying that you need to go through your wiring harness and clean all the connections, grounds, fuse box, etc.

Could it be that you have a malfunctioning safety switch on the kickstand or the kill switch is shorting?


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff