Looks like I may have an alternator problem...

My battery needed charging the other day (had dropped to under 12v) even when riding it every day. So after charging I checked the charging system by starting the bike, rev'ing to 4k rpm's, and testing voltage at the battery. I barely get to 13v. I should be getting 14-15v.

Now I just replaced the stock voltage regulator about 2-3 months ago with a new solid state regulator rectifier combo and it was testing great. I have a hard time believing that unit failed. I can't test the rectifier only as the book specifies (pulling the green socket from the electrical panel) since I no longer have the stock rectifier.

I will have to do some ohm testing on the stator/rotor and see where I get.

Look at the wiring behind the front sprocket cover. I have seen two KZ-1000s with a short where the alternator wires connect to the wiring harness. If the engine got hot and or if gas driped on this sprocket
cover, the insulation on these wires goes away.

Spock

Yeah, I'm definitely going to check over that portion of wiring before calling the alt. bad.

In the middle of rebuilding engine so I just had my alternator cover off. I wasn't having any electrical problems but just like Spock said........the 3 wires were all bare right at the rubber grommett going into the cover. Glad I found it when I did. Good luck and Ride safe........

Tested resistance on the stator and it's not checking out good.

I'm showing open on blue to pink, open on blue to yellow, and normal (.70 ohms) on yellow to pink. Also showing shorted on the ground to yellow, pink, and blue test.

The wiring harness is routed in the holders and not touching the engine case or anything. Next step is to pull the sprocket cover and fully pull back the wiring harness and inspect. If I can't find anything there I will pull the alt. cover.

z1rkrazy wrote:

In the middle of rebuilding engine so I just had my alternator cover off. I wasn't having any electrical problems but just like Spock said........the 3 wires were all bare right at the rubber grommett going into the cover. Glad I found it when I did. Good luck and Ride safe........

What did you do about the bare wiring? I noticed that too last time I had my cover off.

Cleaned all the oil and grease off of the wires and then wrapped them with heat shrink tubing and electrical tape. Ride safe........

Looks like I was testing incorrectly. I pulled the harness back and noticed the blue wire I was testing with goes to the oil pressure switch. When I use the other insulated wire coming from the stator I get good readings. However, that wire looks white to me and not sky blue like the book says.

Anyhow, can anyone confirm I should be perfoming my ohm tests using only the 3 wires coming from the stator? It makes sense to me, I just want to check.

The resistance should be the same no matter what wires your testing. Also you might want to check your coils. I replaced evrything three times before I found out I had a bad coil.

When I rebuild an engine, I just automatically build a new wiring harness for the stator. I find it easiest to remove the stator and unsolder the three yellow leads. I solder new wires on and route them through a NEW rubber plug and seal everything well. It is easiest to cut the old wires about 3 inches from the blue plug and splice the new wires there (solder/heat shrink) but have also pulled the pins and put the new wires in. If you go to Radioshack, they have replacement pins under their DC connector stuff. I like to wrap the whole thing including the neutral switch wire and the oil pressure idiot light in electrical tape then use a plastic spiral sheath to protect the electrical tape as this wire can get rubbed raw under the starter. Make sure you use the two engine case bolts having the wire keepers to hold the wire and make it loose under the starter to avoid this chafing.

Well since I think I figured out what I was doing and started testing the stator correctly and it tested good...next was to check the charging system again.

I temporarily hooked the stator plug up again and started the bike. Meter shows between 14v and 15v right around 4k rpms. I don't know what the heck was going on. Maybe I'm just coming up with problems, but I was barely getting 13v when I checked last week. Anyhow, the harness and insulation looks really good. I cleaned everything and put it back together. I'm just gonna let it ride for now and take a voltage test every week or so.

Glad I don't have to buy a stator just yet...they run around $195 new from Z1E and I'm broke right now. :whistle:

Post edited by: savedrider, at: 2006/02/06 18:37

It's acting up again!:S Today before I left for work I put a meter on it and was barely able to draw 13v at the battery. The fact that it does produce some charging voltage is throwing me off. If the stator were bad (shorted) wouldn't it not be charging at all?

Is it possible my battery is going belly up and could cause this? The battery is at least 2 yrs old. I'm going to test the ohms on my stator again later tonight and will report back.