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'98 Electrical Issue


JimMoore

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I went for a 50-mile ride today. I shut down in the driveway. A minute later when I turned on the key to start back up - nothing. Dead. So dead the clock goes away with the key on. I do have very dim oil and FI lights. 

 

I've done a little troubleshooting. The battery has 13 volts key off, 4-5 volts key-on. All my fuses look good, both 30 Amp fuses and all my little ones. All my electrical connections look OK. I don't see anything that looks burned or melted. If I hook up another battery I get power, but just enough juice to barely turn over. Not enough to start.

 

The bike has been running great. No hard starts. No indications of a failing battery. I checked the voltages a few months ago and everything was healthy.

 

So, what the hell? Just a dead battery? That's my first thought, although the failure was a little weird, and I'm a little concerned that a battery out of a different bike couldn't get it to start. Other ideas? Bad starter killed that battery?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Jim Moore

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I was able to get it started up and running for a few minutes. I happened to have a volt meter handy, so I checked the voltages at various rpms. The R/R seems to be rectifying and regulating correctly. The bike died after a few minutes and the battery voltage immediately went back to 4v-5v. I think I have an intermittent internal failure of the battery. Any other ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Jim Moore

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The battery is the quickest thing to change and would be consistent with what you are seeing. If it develops an internal short, then a jump battery will be struggling against that and the jump wires will get quite hot - been there and done that, on my daughter's car. Try repeating the jump battery exercise but with the original pulled out of the circuit. 

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8 minutes ago, Terry said:

The battery is the quickest thing to change and would be consistent with what you are seeing. If it develops an internal short, then a jump battery will be struggling against that and the jump wires will get quite hot - been there and done that, on my daughter's car. Try repeating the jump battery exercise but with the original pulled out of the circuit. 

Funny thing, as I was playing with it I was thinking, "Goddam, these jumpers are getting HOT!" I'm going to try a new battery tomorrow.

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Batteries can either fade away, or just die suddenly. My understanding is that the inside of the battery has many thin lead plates separated by the glass matt (in an AGM battery) or gel with the electrolyte present. The lead surface develops fatigue from cycling and eventually starts to shed, and the shed particles can form a bridge between the plates and cause the short. This seems to be more common in a hot battery than cold, so the dying battery will seem fine on a cold start but then won't have enough juice to start the hot engine. 

 

I can also confirm that crossing the polarity with jump cables is a very bad idea, they melt quite fast...

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Jim

You need to do a full blown charging system check.  Near all 5th gen get that fate of system death. Very typical I'd the R/R is shot.

 

Please search for the charging system test procedure called

"The Drill" ... follow it and the answer is there.....

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5 hours ago, mello dude said:

Jim

You need to do a full blown charging system check.  Near all 5th gen get that fate of system death. Very typical I'd the R/R is shot.

 

Please search for the charging system test procedure called

"The Drill" ... follow it and the answer is there.....

Thanks. I'll do that. Turns out the engine I bought for my CBR600 has a crack in the block, so I suddenly have some time on my hands. Yay, me! 

 

How long can I run the engine with the stator unplugged? I've never done that before.

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Can't say I have run a bike more then say 10 minutes with the stator disconnected. But if you think about it, you are running the bike powered by the battery only.

There have been a member or two report on a trip, charging died, and ended up buying a cheap car battery plus a charger, and get home by hooking up the car battery with cables and at times doing a recharge at end of ride stops.......

 

Anyhow...........follow the drill and gimme all the numbers.......then we can point at possible solution.

 

Also check your starter relay connectors, they like to melt too.

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My FJS600 scooter had a dead stator, and I ran it like that for nearly 1000km while I waited on the slow boat fromm China with my new stator. I was running the bike off a home-charged battery only, and could get about 45 minutes running time. 

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Drill Numbers:

 

New battery voltage:

 

Key off: 12.8

Idle: 13.9

5K rpm: 14.1-14.2

 

Stator resistance pin-to-pin: All 1.5-1.6. Problem? Could be, but I'm guessing a less-than-accurate $15 voltmeter.

 

Stator resistance pin-to-ground: All infinity. Nothing there.

 

Stator AC volts (cold and hot engine):

 

Idle: 18-ish for all three pin-to-pin.

3500 rpm (with choke, not enough hands to do 5000 rpm): 48-ish for all three. I think they would have easily been in the 50s at 5K.

 

Thoughts?

 

My conclusion: I would have liked to see more of a jump in battery voltage from idle to 5000 rpm, but I think everything else looks OK.

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

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That looks perfect to me, according to a fault finding guide I have (from Electrosport) the pin-pin resistance at the stator should be 0.5 to 2 ohms, so all looks fine. The voltage range from idle to 5k is also pretty normal, my 5th gen was always at 14.2V, my ST1100 was always 14.1 and my FSC600 is 14.2V.. 

 

Get out and ride.

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Agree with Terry.... the drill numbers are looking good, no problem there..... Check your starter relay connectors, clean the stator connectors or better yet solder/heat shrink each.

Put on your "to do" list to add a voltmeter up front so you can watch trends of whats going on.  Yes, go ride... 

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1 hour ago, JimMoore said:

Thanks guys. Quick question. Is there any reason I shouldn't use heat shrink butt splice connectors? I've had success with them in the past.

None whatsoever, excellent product. These look like AMP in-line connectors used in the aircraft industry. They work great provided they are properly crimped, same goes for these butt splices.

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11 minutes ago, DannoXYZ said:

So what did you end up using those butt-crimp connectors for?

I'm going to use them to connect the wires from the stator on my CBR600 F3. The plug is fried on that bike. If it works OK I'll probably do the same thing to my VFR eventually.

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So you would cut out fried connector for 3 sets of yellow stator wires.

Then butt-crimp wires across so you have direct connection to RR plug?

Basically replace stator-connector with butt-crimps?

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2 hours ago, DannoXYZ said:

So you would cut out fried connector for 3 sets of yellow stator wires.

Then butt-crimp wires across so you have direct connection to RR plug?

Basically replace stator-connector with butt-crimps?

Yep. Exactly. Sound reasonable?

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7 hours ago, JimMoore said:

Yep. Exactly. Sound reasonable?

Sure does. Properly crimped you will have eliminated the chance of hi resistance connections and associated heat issues. You are also greatly reducing the chances of water ingress because of its heat shrink outer covering. 

These can simply be cut and re-done if ever you have another Stator issue. A far superior connection than the original spade and blade type.

Jim, the sooner you do the job the better, if it was my bike I'd have it done yesterday, the original Stator to R/R plug is a real problem causer with 5th and 6gens.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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On 9/18/2020 at 12:31 PM, JimMoore said:

Yep. Exactly. Sound reasonable?

Yup, sounds good. Keeping water out with heat-shrink should prevent corrosion that messed up original connectors. So you shouldn’t ever have to do this repair again.

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On 9/18/2020 at 7:44 PM, Grum said:

Sure does. Properly crimped you will have eliminated the chance of hi resistance connections and associated heat issues. You are also greatly reducing the chances of water ingress because of its heat shrink outer covering. 

These can simply be cut and re-done if ever you have another Stator issue. A far superior connection than the original spade and blade type.

Jim, the sooner you do the job the better, if it was my bike I'd have it done yesterday, the original Stator to R/R plug is a real problem causer with 5th and 6gens.

 

Can confirm -- when I snipped off the plug connector and used a crimp-connector to join the R/R and the Stator together and then wrapped with electrical tape, the wire temperature seemed to drop a bit. Initially it was getting a bit hot and I was getting worried it would end up melting when I took the bike out on the road. So far it seems to be holding stable.

 

Furthermore, the voltage stays consistent at around 14.2-14.4 V and when I rev to 5k and beyond, the voltage neither drops or increases more than 0.2-0.3 V . Before I replaced my stator, revving to 5k would see me down in the low 13V range and it would fluctuate more wildly. My old stator coil contact patches were worn and pitted and while I didn't have a burned connector (yet), the unit was likely getting on in age and was eventually on its way out. A replacement unit from Rick's seems to have helped issues on my end, although I think I'm also going to replace the spark plugs because the bike doesn't quite want to start up on first crank.

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