Heres a good one!

Bike has too much voltage on red wire coming to batt. but the brown wire at regulator reads normal? Read on at bottom..

Post edited by: skydailey, at: 2007/07/16 09:35

Post edited by: skydailey, at: 2007/07/16 09:36

I assume it is a 1977 650 B or C?

Good example of why that alternator is stronger than the permanent-magnet type. I don't think anyone gets above 14v at idle on the permanent-magnet type.

Sounds like your regulator is goofy. It could be the ground wire on the regulator is faulty or the regulator itself is faulty. Is this a stock regulator, or one from www.oregonmotorcyleparts.com ?

EDIT: Ok, I looked back, it's a 77 B, with an Oregon regulator.

Put a voltmeter on the ground wire at the regulator. make sure it says 0v all the time (the black lead of your meter should be on the negative side of the battery). If that's 0v all the time, then check the voltage at the positive connection of the regulator (brown wire, I think). If it's higher than 14.5, or so, then the regulator is probably faulty, but there's a couple other things to check.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/07/15 12:19

Sorry it is a 1977 650 b1. The regulator is brand new and it is from oregon motorcycle. What should the max volt be at battery?

I edited my post above.

with negative lead on negative post on batt. and pos lead on ground at regulator it read 0.05 to 0.09 when rpm are up. The other test with the neg. lead on neg. post on batt and pos. lead on pos. lead on reg. the volt. never exceeded 14.8. However at idle when checking back and forth between pos. lead on regulator then pos. lead at batt. the regulator would read 14.5 while batt would read 15.6 or at idle?
One more thing.. My battery with the bike off is sitting at 12.59 volts. Is this too high, could my battery be causing this?

Post edited by: skydailey, at: 2007/07/15 13:27

skydailey wrote:

with negative lead on negative post on batt. and pos lead on ground at regulator it read 0.05 to 0.09 when rpm are up. The other test with the neg. lead on neg. post on batt and pos. lead on pos. lead on reg. the volt. never exceeded 14.8. However at idle when checking back and forth between pos. lead on regulator then pos. lead at batt. the regulator would read 14.5 while batt would read 15.6 or at idle?

The regulator is good, but just a hair high at 14.8v.
The problem is that you are losing voltage between the battery and the regulator. This loss of voltage makes the regulator think the voltage is too low at the battery.

The bike actually uses less ignition power at higher RPMs, so there is less voltage loss on the bad connections at higher RPMs, so the problem may not be there at higher RPMs.

To correct the problem, you need to trace the voltage from battery positive to the fuses, then to the ignition key switch, then to the regulator. Somewhere there is a drop in voltage throgh a connector etc. There may be several bad spots. Start with the fuses and ignition switch. Voltage going in should be about the same as voltage coming out. If not, then something needs to be cleaned or replaced. All readings should use the battery negative as the reference point for the meter's black lead. The tests need to happen while the bike is idling because that is when the problem is evident.


skydailey wrote:

One more thing.. My battery with the bike off is sitting at 12.59 volts. Is this too high, could my battery be causing this?

No. It should be between 12.5 and 13v when sitting.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/07/15 15:10

I traced the red wire coming into the battery backward and found that voltage changed some at the ignition plug. The brown wire coming in to the ignition plug was lower than the white wire coming out and eventually going to the battery. Also there were a couple things unplugged like the neutral indicator and another two pronged plug im not sure where it goes.

Post edited by: skydailey, at: 2007/07/15 21:15

Guys I need help I cant ride until I fix this prob which seems relatively easy with the right help. Update; The thin red wire coming from the battery with the bike idling and unplugged from the batt. shows 17 volts. When I plug it back up it drops to 15 or so volts due to a load i guess. That wire is the prob. it seems but why isn't it regulated? HELP HELP IM GOING CRAZY!!

While idling, what are these voltages:
What is the voltage on the battery (red wire)? 15v
If it's only 15, then it's not too bad, but I thought it was 15.8v in the posts above.
What was the voltage going into the 20A fuse (red/white wire)?
What was the voltage coming out of the 20A fuse (white wire)?
What is the voltage going into the ignition switch (white wire)?
What is the voltage coming out of the ignition switch (brown wire)?
What is the voltage going into the regulator (brown wire)?

That is the path from battery to regulator.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/07/16 11:00

Thank you for responding, you are a great help!
With the engine at idle i did the tests with engine cold, warm then hot and got different results in a growing patern.
Cold
R/wire batt. 13.0
R/Wh Fuse 12.8
Wh Fuse 12.8
Ign.White 12.8
Ign.Brn 12.8
Reg. Brn 12.2

Med temp same order as above
14.5
14.8
14.4
14.0
13.7
13.0

Hot Temp.
15.5
15.5
15.0
14.3
14.0
13.4
Battery sizzling and 20amp fuse hot to touch!

Looks like you are losing voltage in several places. The fuse area seems to be a problem. The ignition switch is a problem, and it looks like you have a bad connection somewhere along the brown wire.

The fuse area must be fixed, or you will start melting fuses (not blowing from over-current, just melting from heat).

Sorry for the bad news. A lot of stuff needs to be fixed. Another option is to do a similar mod like the Wiredgeorge coil mod. You could put a relay to feed battery voltage directly to the regulator. This would give direct power to the regulator. I'll draw a quick diagram.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2007/07/16 12:48

Im all ears!!