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Tale of Woe

  • Thread starter Thread starter granda0101
  • Start date Start date
G

granda0101

Guest
I got a 1981 GS650G with 9400 miles on it at a yard sale about a year ago for $825.00. To make a long story short, I lost my job,finally found a new one, and now a year later, I went and got it licensed and insured.
I charged up the battery, gassed it up, and rode for hours. Toward evening it started to stumble and the turn signals grew dim and would not flash-just stayed on. The headlight also grew dim. Barely got home.
Charged up the battery again. Multimeter shows 13.2 volts at the battery with engine off and 12.1 volts with engine running! It seems my charging system is not charging but draining.
I have fooled around with it all day and I am frustrated, hot, angry, sweaty, and disgusted with myself-not the best frame of mind to be in to make a decision. I read the "Stator Papers" and pulled up the Electro Sport link. Looks lime about $250.00 for a Stator, Rectifier/regulator. How hard a job is this and how long will it take? I am reasonably handy with tools. Thanks. Sorry about the rant.
 
Not a hard job. 2-3 hours should do it (less if you are handy). You will need an impact driver to get the engine cover screws off and a new cover gasket.

You might want to check the ground wire at the regulator. It's recommended to run a dedicated ground from the regulator directly to the battery.

To save some money check the For Sale forum and order up one of those Honda regulators - more reliable and cheap. Throw it on and see if it fixes the problem - not likely but you never know.

Good luck.
 
13.2 with the bike off? Your problem may be as simple as a new battery. On a bike they normally only last a year or so. Have it load tested (after charging it) at a local parts store. I've had bikes act exactly as you've described and it turned out to be a bad cell in the battery.

That being said, the stator papers are a great reference, but you need a tested and well-charged battery to do a complete diagnostic. And I highly recommend the Honda regulator conversion, much more reliable than the stock Suzuki unit. Easy to do, took me less than an hour. My regulator's off of a CBR, people also recommend the CX400 ones. As long as it's got three yellow wires, one or two red wires, one or two green wires, and a black wire (optional, some have 'em some don't) it'll work.

The biggest culprit on these bikes is dirty/corroded connectors and grounds. Make sure to clean all of those. I cut them all out and soldered/heat shrunk mine.
 
Let's shed some sunshine on your "Tale of Woe", if possible.

It's not the charging system that's draining the battery. The ignition and the lights are what's draining it, the charging system is just not replenishing it.

As others have mentioned, you have to start with a good battery. To keep things cheap for the moment, let's assume the battery in your car is good. Connect it to your bike with jumper cables, but don't have the car engine running when you do this. (Better to remove the battery from the car, but I'm trying to keep it simple.)

Now do all the tests in the Stator Papers. You have already done part of Phase A, do the rest of them. Phase B will tell you whether the stator is OK. Phase C then checks the r/r.

Do these tests before you assume the worst and order everything. There is always the chance that it's just dirty connections and won't co$t you a thing except a couple hours of your time. \\:D/


.
 
Indeed,

as Steve describes, it might not be necessary to order all pieces just because the charging system in general is not working. I had exactly the same issues some time ago (losing voltage the higher rpm) and got it solved by replacing the R/R with a old Shindengen SH232-12V. The stator proved to be OK (95 VAC on all three phases...)
 
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