Electrical Help Please!

[Guest tmoeller]

I recently purchased a 91 vfr seemingly in great condition. I rode it home 200 miles, got 1.5 miles from my house when it blew the 30 amp main fuse (I of course didn't discover this until I had pushed the bike mostly uphill to my house, which of course speaks prettly clearly that a. I'm an idiot and b. electrical problems are not my forte). Anyway, the bike had sat a year before I bought it, so I spent the next week cleaning carbs, changing plugs, etc. The electrical problems didn't re-occur. So I go for a long ride saturday, no problem. Yesterday I go to the store and the dash lights dimmed to about half, the turn signals the same, then it dies and won't start. I let it sit and push started it. It ran for a bit, then died again. This continued until I got home. The fuse is fine.

Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is the the R/R thing? What's the group of plugs just forward of the battery where the 30 amp fuse is?

Looking forward to hanging out and talking bikes under better circumstances, but I'd like to get this one taken care of so any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

[Guest Seven9ine]

i had just bought a 91 VFR this year... when I drove it home the day i bought it the bike had died. The owner said he replaced all the electrical last year, so i was confused as to what it could be. I took the right fairing off and found that the stator plug (3 yellow wires into a plug) had melted, so I rewired it and drove it home. That lasted about 1 week and the bike had died again... took off the fairing and again the wires had melted together. So yet again I had to do another cheap rewire job just to get me around... anyway, turns out it was the stator, but in the end I ordered the part myself and installed it myself, which was pretty easy and I have gone on 4 pretty big rides and its still going! cross fingers.

I would check to see if you have the new rectifier, make sure its the one with the fins, if not you can order it online for a decent price... get a multimeter and hook it up to the battery. start the engine and rev it up to 5k to see how many volts the battery is receiving. again, check all your connections to make sure they are not melted or anything like that.

hope this helps, any questions feel free to pm me.

[Guest]

i had just bought a 91 VFR this year... when I drove it home the day i bought it the bike had died. The owner said he replaced all the electrical last year, so i was confused as to what it could be. I took the right fairing off and found that the stator plug (3 yellow wires into a plug) had melted, so I rewired it and drove it home. That lasted about 1 week and the bike had died again... took off the fairing and again the wires had melted together. So yet again I had to do another cheap rewire job just to get me around... anyway, turns out it was the stator, but in the end I ordered the part myself and installed it myself, which was pretty easy and I have gone on 4 pretty big rides and its still going! cross fingers.

I would check to see if you have the new rectifier, make sure its the one with the fins, if not you can order it online for a decent price... get a multimeter and hook it up to the battery. start the engine and rev it up to 5k to see how many volts the battery is receiving. again, check all your connections to make sure they are not melted or anything like that.

hope this helps, any questions feel free to pm me.

thanks....I'll be looking around this evening. I'll check the regulator, and take off the right fairing and check out the wires to the stator. I did have the fairing off on saturday (changed the plugs) and didn't notice anything, but I wasn't really looking either. How much did the stator cost??

[Tightwad]

I am working on an Upgraded Harness for our VFR's, and I would love to be able to make one for the 3-4th Gen bikes. If you can take pictures of the bike sans fairing, the connectors(looking at the pins) as well as give an indicator of how long the wires from the Stator Plug to the RR are, that would be awesome.

As to the current problem, I agree it sounds like a charging issue. the tests Steve9ine suggested will go a long way towards sorting it. Be sure the battery is charged so the bike can run without the R/R working, for one test you need to unplug the Stator and check the AC voltage from wire to wire.

[Guest]

so here's an update to my problems.....

I used a multimeter to read the voltage at the battery terminals.

With the bike turned off and the battery charged fully, it read 13.04 v

With the bike idling, it read 12.45 v

With the bike at 5500 rpm, it read 12.45 v.

I'd say my r/r is screwed.

BTW, tightwad. I said I'd take pics of the plugs between the stator and the r/r....I will. When I went out to do it last night, I couldn't find my camera....the reason? My daughter is in europe, and has it. She gets back later this week, so I'll take the pics then.

[chris2992]

Those results show bad stator. Take a voltage reading across all three legs of the stator feeding the RR. The fact that the voltage doesn't change at all shows that the stator isn't putting out any current, thus not charging the bike. The bike puts a large load on the battery when running, so that is why you have a drop from bike off to idle. I'd venture a guess that if you just flick the key on and check the voltage, bike not running, you will read about 12.6ish V.

[squirrelman]

how to say "screw you" in Japanese: Shindengen.

[Guest]

Those results show bad stator. Take a voltage reading across all three legs of the stator feeding the RR. The fact that the voltage doesn't change at all shows that the stator isn't putting out any current, thus not charging the bike. The bike puts a large load on the battery when running, so that is why you have a drop from bike off to idle. I'd venture a guess that if you just flick the key on and check the voltage, bike not running, you will read about 12.6ish V.

chris,

when you say across all three legs of the stator, do you mean there are three seperate plugs between the stator and the r/r? If so, which wires should I put the red lead on, and where should I ground the black lead? Also, what setting should I put the multimeter on?

[jeremy556]

when you say across all three legs of the stator, do you mean there are three seperate plugs between the stator and the r/r? If so, which wires should I put the red lead on, and where should I ground the black lead? Also, what setting should I put the multimeter on?

There is 1 connector from the stator to the R/R. In that connector are 3 wires, these are the "3 legs"

Set your multimeter to AC above 60 volts (probably 120v).

Put a test lead on one wire, and a lead on another wire, then do the same on the other wires to test the voltage across them. Make sure not to short them out.