fabio222 Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 Hi all, Yet another electrical problem befuddles me in my quest to make my 1997 VFR 750 fully reliable! I was out for a longish spin last weekend and for some of the trip I had my heated grips now as it was raining. I stopped for a coffee and when I set on my way I put the grips on again but after about 30 miles, as I slowed down to allow someone out of a junction, the bike conked out. I tried to restart it but I ended up having to push start it. Before doing this I took the seat off and felt the regulator/rectifier which was only moderately warm, nothing to make me concerned. I got to a dealership about 20 miles away (Shanahan's Honda in Tralee in Kerry) where I borrowed a multimeter to test the voltage over the battery. The battery was about 12.3v and it would charge at about 13.3v at 5000rpm which is below spec (spec is 13.5-16v). On the trip to the dealer I kept the grips and lights off. When I was home I tried going through the testing procedure in the manual but nothing came of that (I couldn't test the r/r or measure the amps for the charging system though) everything seemed to check out ok but the charging was pretty weak as the voltage was only marginally in spec. It didn't charge at all when the grips were put on (voltage would drop to the low 12s). Today I noticed it took a good bit to start the engine and when I measured the voltage after some town riding it was 11.7v at the battery while off. After some motorway riding it measured 12.2v across the battery when off and barely reached 13v at 5000rpm and above. I did the leak test and that came out ok while the wiring harness test came out ok when I tested it after the spin last weekend. Again I've not been using the heated grips! I'm perplexed...the battery is less than 6 months old and hasn't suffered any trauma like a broken r/r (that's less than 6 months old too). I'm thinking could be a weak stator? The bike has 65,000 miles on it now so I wonder is it that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer mk2davis Posted September 11, 2013 Member Contributer Share Posted September 11, 2013 Test the stator, both VAC and ohms. How do your connections look? Have you beefed up your wiring harness at all? The VFRness gave me an extra volt across the board, and I ride a rock steady 14.4-14.5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabio222 Posted September 12, 2013 Author Share Posted September 12, 2013 I'm going to do more testing when I get home from college. I would love a VFRness...I really want to try sort the electrics fully on this bike. I love eveyrhting else about it bar those! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted September 12, 2013 Member Contributer Share Posted September 12, 2013 No, the first thing you do is test the battery! It's easy to do and eliminates a problem that could throw off many of the other tests. So test the battery by fully charging it, then letting it sit (disconnected from the bike) for several hours. If it is a good battery it will still show 12.7v or more. If less, regardless of age, the battery is weak. Sorry! AGM batteries do not like being fully discharged. Did that ever happen? Ciao, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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