1978 KZ1000 charging system finally fixed

I've been dealing with a charging system problem on my kz ever since I got it about 6 months ago. I replaced the battery, but it would just kill the battery after a few rides. If I checked the charge at the bat. terminals it was only getting up to 12.9V at 4K. So I knew I had a problem. I'd work on it a little here and a little there over the summer, and never got anywhere, I followed the pinpoint tests in the service manual, and talked to people on here, and everything always checked out fine. Well finally my battery had enough of discharging and then recharging and it left my Dad sit about a half an hour from my house. So I then bought another battery and sat down the other day to try and figure it out. I checked the white wire coming out of the rectifier, and it had 20V-DC. So I knew it was losing it somewhere, I traced to where the white wire goes, and ends up that's the wire that charges the battery. Here a fuse was blown, yeah I know it sounds like I'm stupid, but the fuse looked fine it was actually blown at the very end of the fuse where you couldn't see it. The wires and fuse terminals were pretty bad looking so I replaced the bad wiring and added an inline fuse. After that I checked bat. voltage at 4K and it was 14.5V. So I am thrilled, funny how such a simple thing can cause all those problems. Just figured I would share this info with anyone who might have a charging problem. Check your fuses, the manual doesn't tell you, and I never saw it listed anywhere on here before either.

Excellent! Glad to see you've got it rolling along again. There's a lesson for all of us there; take you time and test carefully. Good job.

Sam


NewKZguy wrote:

I've been dealing with a charging system problem on my kz ever since I got it about 6 months ago. I replaced the battery, but it would just kill the battery after a few rides. If I checked the charge at the bat. terminals it was only getting up to 12.9V at 4K. So I knew I had a problem. I'd work on it a little here and a little there over the summer, and never got anywhere, I followed the pinpoint tests in the service manual, and talked to people on here, and everything always checked out fine. Well finally my battery had enough of discharging and then recharging and it left my Dad sit about a half an hour from my house. So I then bought another battery and sat down the other day to try and figure it out. I checked the white wire coming out of the rectifier, and it had 20V-DC. So I knew it was losing it somewhere, I traced to where the white wire goes, and ends up that's the wire that charges the battery. Here a fuse was blown, yeah I know it sounds like I'm stupid, but the fuse looked fine it was actually blown at the very end of the fuse where you couldn't see it. The wires and fuse terminals were pretty bad looking so I replaced the bad wiring and added an inline fuse. After that I checked bat. voltage at 4K and it was 14.5V. So I am thrilled, funny how such a simple thing can cause all those problems. Just figured I would share this info with anyone who might have a charging problem. Check your fuses, the manual doesn't tell you, and I never saw it listed anywhere on here before either.

good deal there. I'm going out today to try to fix my carb issue and I will check this out too since I only have like 12.7 volts at my battery at 4k like your issue. I guess I'm going looking for fuses and other wiring issues.