Overcharging and low voltage on brown wire -KZ1000

Hey everyone, I recently had one of the three yellow wires coming from my alternator break on me. The bike was acting a little funny, slow blinkers, horn barely audible, turn signal indicator dimly lit at all times.... and one day last week it was cranking over slower than usual. I checked the battery while it was running, and it was only at 12.3v or so. It must have been charging some, as I rode the bike for a month or so with these symptoms (besides the slow cranking). Once I found the broken wire and replaced all the wiring under the sprocket cover, my battery is being charged once again.

The only problem is that it is charging at 15.5 volts at 4k rpm. At idle, it is in the 12v range. I did my research on here and learned that the brown wire that connects to the regulator should be the same voltage as the battery. Well, it isn't. It is about one whole volt lower than the battery. As I understand it, this one volt drop will be compensated by the regulator, thus why my battery is being charged about a volt higher than it should be. I hooked this brown wire up directly to the battery as a test, and it charged at 14.5v at 4k rpms.

Obviously I have a drop in voltage that needs sorted out. I have done the coil relay mod for what it is worth. I checked voltage at the ignition switch, using the battery as a ground, and had about .37v loss there (Headlight was unplugged). I checked the brown wire in the headlight bucket, and it has virtually no voltage drop. Isn't this wire fed from the ignition switch? If so, I would assume it would have the same amount of drop.

I checked the yellow and black wires that are in the headlight bucket and the one at the starter solenoid, using the positive terminal at the battery, and they showed no signs of voltage loss either.

I've looked at a wiring diagram, and it looks like this brown wire is used to feed most of the lighting on the bike. I only know of two connectors for this brown wire. One at the regulator, and the one in the headlight bucket.

Anyone have any tips on what I should check next? Thanks!

How are you supplying power for the cursed coil mod?

wireman wrote: How are you supplying power for the cursed coil mod?

Straight from the battery. Using the old power wire for the coil as the signal wire for the relay.

This is actually the reason many of us don't recommend the coil mod. It basically covers up the real problem, which then hautns you later by boiling the battery.

Most voltage drops are in common places. The most common place is probably right at the fuse holders. They get dirty and then heat up. If the fuse wiring looks discolored or charred, there is your firt area to fix. You can replace the fuse box with a more modern one pretty cheaply.

The next most common place to lose voltage is on the ignition switch itself. This is not easy to see. It will require voltage measurements with a meter.

"reason many of us don't recommend the coil mod."... We have a winner!

Yes it does have a purpose for drag bikes and such but....

[ Coil Mod Write Up

edit: URL link acting weird.... :blink:

kzrider.com/filebase/doc_download/479-co...recommended-solution

I took the time today to clean the ignition switch, sand the terminals to where they were shined up, and put new dielectric grease on everything. This took care of a .2v drop I had between the feed wire on the ign switch and the brown wire. I also cleaned connectors under the gas tank and a few in the headlight bucket. On a side note, I hooked up the coils to their stock power wire and noticed a .5v drop at the brown wire. I hooked up everything (including the lights), hooked the coils back up to the relay, and ran the bike. It now charges 15v at 4k rpms instead of 15.5v. I think cleaning the ignition switch probably helped out the most.

I may look at the kill switch next.

The voltage at the fuse box was good, although the brown wire has some voltage loss there (.2-.3v), but there is no loss from one side of the fuse to the other and the connectors are clean.

By the way, dielectric grease is an insulator. If it gets between two pieces of metal that are supposed to be connected electrically, they stop being connected fully. This can cause a bunch of mysterious voltage losses. I've spent many hours cleaning/replacing connectors that had dielectric grease on them.