Not charging

Riding home on the KZP last night I noticed my lights were dim. Then weren't getting brighter when the engine revved, so I think I may have damaged something when I took a dive a few weeks ago. I put the tender on the battery last night, but the red light was still on this morning so I left the bike at home. I'm hoping it was just a wire or connection, but I guess I'll see. I'll be testing things tonight when I get home with my meter to see if I can find the culprit...

When you took a dive?? Sounds like you are ok.

Maybe the battery got messed up somehow..how's the fluid level in it?

Doug - Here is what I would do:

1. check electrolyte in battery with hydrometer to ensure there are no dead cells.
2. check ground from battery to engine. clean and tight?
3. check positive cable to solenoid. clean and tight
4. remove plug where alternator wires plug into junction and clean and lube with dielectic grease
5. repeat for plug where wires go to reg/rec

If those things don't show a problem, measure the voltage (AC) coming off your generator or whatever it is called. I think that a manual would help but there is likely about 25 VAC on each pair of hot wires. If you are getting a decent amount of voltage, next test is to check battery voltage with bike running. OF coure, if AC voltage is significantly less, then your alternator is shot or de-magnetized. If you get no voltage on one check, you may have a wire come loose from the alternator to the wire bundle.

If you have adequate voltage, check reg/rec by measuring voltage in VDC scale while bike is idling. Should be about 12.5 VDC across battery terminals. Then rev to about 3500 rpm and check. Should be about 14.5-15 VDC. If you get significantly more or less, then the reg/rec is dying.

If you check things as I laid out, which is a fairly methodical way of doing it, you will find the problem. It is most likely with the wires being dirty or loose or a bad cell on your battery... this stuff accounts for about 2/3 of all the non-charging type problems.

It was dark when I discovered this last night riding home, so I really couldn't tell anything about the battery. I'm going to work on it tonight and hopefully will find the problem.
I don't have too many long workdays, but yesterday was one. I'm going home a little early to start checking it out.
Yeah, I dodged a deer on the mile long road coming into the place I work and went off the pavement into deep sandy gravel and did a nose dive.

WG, thanks for the procedure. I printed it out and will follow your directions and hopefully discover the problem, and hopefully it will be wiring or connector related. The battery is bran new 2 months ago, but that doesn't mean much. The last "night" driving I had done was coming home from your house, so no telling how long this has been a problem. I can't help but feel it's related to my nose dive...

I've also noticed that progressively the bike is getting harder to start. It runs fine once it starts, but seems like it takes a bit more to get it to fire up. I'm thinking what ever the cause of the charging problem is also causing a weak spark. Haven't done the coil mod on this bike yet but will probably be doing that as soon as I figure out this issue...

Post edited by: fergyfer, at: 2006/01/04 16:40

You are more than welcome to drive down. I would be more than happy to help sort the problem out. The steps I laid out will help you find it pretty quickly I think. I have bought NEW batteries where a cell has not taken a charge. The battery was defective I guess and the only way to figure this out is by using a hydrometer. I think car fix up places have battery load testers but this type gizmo is a bit expensive for a hobbiest or small time mechanic to own.

Give me a call if you need any advice. I also have a spare reg/rec if you need one... although I am not sure if the wiring is the same as the one on your cop bike.

Well, the green light was on, on the tender when I got home, and the battery tested good. It also showed 12.8 volts. When I started the bike (which by the way, it started up immediately on the fully charged battery) it showed 13.6 volts just idling. When I revved the bike, it jumped to 14.8 volts I believe at it's highest, around 4000 rpms. I still pulled connectors off the left side panel and cleaned and dielectric greased them. I found a single to double bullet connector where the white/red wire coming from the regulator back to the battery connected in, and it was a little corroded, so I cleaned/greased it. It is working great for now and I'll keep an eye on it.
One thing though, I found a pair of wires (brown and green/white) down under my left floorboard that are stripped and twisted together and taped up. I'm not sure where they come from, and my wiring diagram in the Clymer manual didn't seem to show any such pair of wires. I'm guessing that they are for maybe the side stand switch, which I don't seem to have or know what it is supposed to look like. Just curious about them. I haven't tried to start the bike with them apart...

I am pretty sure one of the cop bike owners will have to chime in on those wires by the floorboard. I would still get a hydrometer and test the battery cells at some point. You may have marginal cells that lose charge too quickly. A hydrometer only costs about a buck at an autoparts store. Looks like an eyedropper with colored balls on the inside. It measures the specific gravity of the electrolyte which is the indication of cell health. You may also want to buy a voltmeter. There is probably one of those at the autoparts store as well. You could run a hot wire from your solenoid lug to a voltmeter and keep an eye on voltage while you were operating the bike. With a fairing, you could probably put a guage or two into the fairing body I guess. Anyway, hope all is well! And remember, you got the current battery charge from your battery tender and not the generator. You may not be getting good AC voltage out of that thing. It might be worth doing the tests on that component to get a warm feeling since FM1431 gets dark and lonely at night in the winter...

Side stand switch has three wires.
Brown
Green/White
Black/Yellow ( ground)

I would think these wires would be in a shop manual. I suspect the switch by-passes when the brown and white/green are tied together and the black/yellow was a ground...

I actually did use a volt meter on the battery with engine off: 12.8 volts, and at idle: 13.4 volts, revving: 14.8 volts. I did pull the Y connector apart before I tested anything and plugged it back in, so maybe I made a better contact there before I started. I do have a hydrometer that I tested the battery with and it tested good. I "think" probably that y connector may have been the problem. I only wish I had put the meter on and tested it before I pulled that connector apart to be sure... I hate when I do that.
When I turn on the lights, the voltage drops into the high 12's at idle and into the mid 14's when revving. I'll test it again and write down the exact readings off the volt meter tonight and report back.

After riding the bike yesterday, I tested everything when I got home and the bike was at operating temp. First off, the battery was sitting at 12.4 volts with engine and key off. I started the bike and at idle the volt meter showed 12.5 volts and didn't raise noticably when I revved the engine. (day before it was sitting at 13.4 volts at idle with the freshly tended battery and engine warmed up, and revving the engine brought it up to 14.8 volts)
So, I pulled out the battery to test it with the hydrometer. One cell in the middle had questionable results with one ball floating, but all the other cells had 3 of 4 balls floating, and electrolite level was good on all cells. I'll check with the hydrometer again when I get home on the fully charged battery to see what it reads.
I checked the battery ground to engine and it's clean and tight. I couldn't easily get to the positive to solenoid connector so I'm not sure what shape it's in but I couldn't move it so at least it is tight.
I pulled the red plug with the three yellow wires from the alternator and started the bike. By this time it was cooled down as I went in to eat dinner and read my manual for a while between the last step and this one. So when it started the bike, choke on, it gradually revved from 1000 to about 2500 rpms and measuring the ac voltage across any combination of those three yellow wires, I watched the voltage go from low 20's when the engine was around 1000 rpms, to around 47-48 volts when the engine got to around 2500-3000 rpms. NOTE: My Clymer manual says for measuring alternator output, to pull the red plug and start the engine. Measure all three combinations of the yellow wires with ac voltmeter. The meter should read about 50 volts. If it is much lower, the alternator is defective. It doesn't say anything about rpms and change in voltage as rpms raise, so I'm confused. I'd like to hear your input on this!
Next thing I tried to check was alternator stator resistance, but the book says, with engine off, to set the meter on RX1, check resistance between all three yellow wires in pairs, and the resistance should be about 0.36-0.54 ohms. Well, my meter doesn't have an RX1 setting, (I assume RX1 is standard lingo that everyone "else" understands but me) My meter has several settings in the resistance group so I put it on the lowest without the "K" after the number. Basically I couldn't get anything near what the book says I should get and since I'm dumbed out by my meter, I'll have to get clarification before I can measure this. It says to set the ommeter on the highest scale and check resistance between each yellow lead and ground. Resistance should be infinite. I guess I'll have to read up on my multimeter to see what the highest scale is and what infinite means. I didn't even try this one...

Post edited by: fergyfer, at: 2006/01/06 10:32

My multimeter is an Ideal Sperry,

and they have an 800 tech support number that I called and they told me what I need to know to measure this stuff... So, I'll be measuring this at lunch time and post readings after...