Stator wires

Recieved my Stator cover in the mail today from a member of another forum. He even polished it, looks great! Using the stator (was expecting cover only, bonus!) that came with it, (now I don't have to replace broken bolt from old stator and cover) both wires coming out are yellow and connect to brown wires. Because of this similarity I assume they can connect either way? Thanks... John


Post edited by: Bluemeanie, at: 2007/11/21 19:23

Nice score... and a free stator! Somebody up there loves you.

As for the wires, on my bike there is no polarity since they simply carry three Vac phases. On my bike the seperate Vac to Vdc rectifier is not Vac input phase sensative. As a matter of fact on my setup I bring the Vac phases (labeled AC) to a terminal block befor going to the rectifier for easy troubleshooting and I don't care which yellow wire goes where:



You will notice that the Vdc produced by the retifier is also wired back to the terminal block for easy access. It was just a fun project to do it this way.

Those Hex/Allen head bolts are great to work with and I think they look cool.

Best of success.

Post edited by: bill_wilcox100, at: 2007/11/21 20:29

Post edited by: bill_wilcox100, at: 2007/11/21 20:29

Post edited by: bill_wilcox100, at: 2007/11/21 20:33

Quite the electrical panel you have there Bill! But you so lost me in your explanation :blink: So I guess your saying that the 2 yellow stator wires can plug in either brown wire? :huh:

THe diagram for your 1980 650 F shows two yellows from the stator all the way to the reg/rec. It doesn't indicate brown wires connected to the stator wires at all. Usually brown is switched 12v. The yellow stator wires are AC.

Is it possible a previous owner did a little custom wiring?

loudhvx, I'm the original owner and this is the first time the stator cover has been off or unplugged in 27 years. OK, maybe the "yellow" wires are just really dirty (chain area) soooo... can wires be plugged in either way????

Sorry, I don't have access to my wiring diagrams right now. The B1 has very different electricals compared to later models... for example mine has 3-Yellow Vac wires while you say yours has only 2-Yellow Vac wires... and of cause the voltage regulation is completely different with the B1 using an old-time relay and yours using the integrated rectifier/regulator unit... at least I believe yours does.

I very strongly suspect that your 2-Yellow Vac wires are not polarity sensitive... but I don't have the diagram.

Anyone else tried this?

Best of success!

Yeah, cut through the grime and they are probably yellow. Heh, come to think of it, mine are all "brown" that way too. :laugh:

Yeah, they are AC, so there is no polarity.

The 1977 650's are the oddball 650'. They use a 3-phase, electro-magnet alternator with a seperate regulator and rectifier. After that they were single-phase, permanent-magnet, with combo reg/rec units. I think Kaw was trying to simplify things. They went a little too far, and later (around 1980 or so?) switched to a 3-phase, permanent magnet system, which is sort of the standard now.

The 1977 system is very different and really can't share anything with the 78 and later. If you replace one part of the charging system, you pretty much have to swap every component of the system. The shame is that the 1977 alternator is more versatile and should actually be more efficient, and give more power at low RPMs than the permanent-magnet type. It's basically a car alternator without brushes so it should last forever. The problem is that it's also very expensive. The 77 did have a major flaw, though, the regulator is a relay type and that requires periodic maintenance... which pretty much no one did. It's also somewhat of a complex system which makes it difficult to troubleshoot, and there's a lot more wires and connectors involved.

If you can get the 77 system with new wires, connectors, and a solid state regulator (the rectifier is just a simple 3-phase bridge), it should make a good touring bike because it should handle a wider variation of electrical loads for lights or heated bits and pieces.

Permanent-magnet types are not as versatile. They are designed for one set of electrical load, and any excess gets burned off by the regulator. This means they have to be built with less output, so idle-voltage suffers with the addition of too many extra accessories.


When I studied my friend's KZ400 which uses the same design charging system as the 77 650, I found that it can hit 14v at idle with the halogen headlight on... pretty impressive.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/11/22 13:04