Police bike mechanics kill me.

Well I purchased my nice '99 KZ1000P18 about 4 or 5 months ago and have been working on it little by little as money allows. I'm just a poor SrA in the United States Air Force and dont make a heck of alot to begin with. Anyway, one of my main probs is I believe that my voltage regulator/rectifier is toast. On the side of the bike there are 5 connectors and the red one is the one that connects the alternator to the rest of the system to charge the battery. Well the battery will hold a charge for about 100miles depending on if I'm running my lights or not. I have tested all the connections as stated in my Clymber manual for the bike and then I noticed that when I plug the reg plug back into the system the wires on that plug get VERY hot. SO I disconnected them and taped them up until I could figure out the real problem. Does this problem ring bells with anyone? I'm pretty sure its the voltage regulator but if anyone has any other ideas I'm all ears. Oh I posted pics of the bike in the gallery!

I'm not familiar with the later cop bikes, but if the wire gets hot even when the bike is turned off, it sounds like a shorted reg/rec.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2006/10/09 15:08

Go to Kawasaki.com and find the parts diagrams for your bike to help pin down the looks of the regulator/rectifier. I don't recall seeing a red wire coming off the cop bike reg/rec... it should be white with a red stripe as I recall but I am an old person with a poor memory. The reg/rec on the cop bike has three yellow wires which are the AC inputs from the alternator, a black wire or perhaps a black/yellow wire which is the ground and a brown wire which is the voltage sensing wire that connects to the bike's electrical system off the switched brown circuit. As I recall, the big plugs on the junction box are colored a bit differently than some of the older models I am familiar with so I won't guess what color plugs you have but the FIRST plug in the panel is the one where the alternator plugs into... you can trace the wires from the alternator. The wires from this plug loop over to the next plug in the panel and this will be where your reg/rec plugs into... on older bikes it is the green one (at least the regulator plug is green where the rectifier is white)... I seem to recall the plug color on the cop bike is different but you can look on the back perhaps to see where the wires from the first plug to the second.

Had the same problem - bike ran like crap, wouldn't idle well, and would last around 100mi and then would die on a fresh new battery. I bought a new replacement rectifier at Z1enterprises for $100 - little steep in price but cured all my problems.

Yup think I found the problem. Its definately the v/r. Now to find one on a limited military budget that wont break the bank. Thanks for the help everyone.