Serenity_VFR

If you have enough battery to turn over the engine and start it it should run for more than 5 minutes even if the R/R is totally unplugged. I think you have another issue that is disconnecting the battery. Either a bad ground or a bad connection at the battery -or a loose wire somewhere in the harness.

He's got a 6th Gen. R/R is up front on the frame and connectors are on the right lower. Oh, well...He's still got to pull off at least the same amount of bodywork to check the connections as he has to remove the R/R since they need to be accessed in either case. I still think that throwing a fairly expensive part at a problem without doing any real troubleshooting is a mistake. If he has a bad stator it is possible to damage a new R/R (or an old one) by continuing to drive it. Best would be to just pull the plugs and run total discharge if it isn't too far.

Putting a random part back into a broken system may or may not fix the issue -but even if you have a bad R/R you might just fry the new one if you have problems elsewhere. Most likely you have bad connections at the 3P AC yellow/yellow/yellow connector and the DC connector that will be slightly improved by replacing 1/2 of them with the new R/R. If you have a problem with a bad stator you might fry a new R/R. If you have problems with your ground you might fry a new R/R. I'd take a look at the connections first. It doesn't take much work to pull off the left fairig lower and the rear tail section (you gotta do this anyhow to replace the R/R). Check out the connections and clean them really well and put in a little bit of anti-ox grease. Pull off the ground connection at the right side of the frame and sand the O-connector and the aluminum of the frame where it touches and reassemble with anti-ox grease. Clean off the battery connections and reassemble with anti-ox grease and then charge the battery and try to get home. Or just get a lift home. There is still a danger that you will ruin another good battery by overcooking or deep cycling it too many times or damage the charging system more. All the components are inter-connected and one bad part can damage others. A new battery still might be cheaper than getting a tow though. Once home Follow The Yellow Brick Road with this troubleshooting guide and find out what the issue is.

Follow the yellow brick road Download and print out that step-by-step flowchart. Make sure you start with a fully-charged battery that can actually HOLD charge or everything you do on the flowchart will be off. It's as simple as that to find the bad components. In the end though, it's probably a bad connector or 12 and a bad ground connection -the most overlooked issue with the R/R charging system.

The Craftsman torque wrench is not guaranteed for life -it's "power" equipment they say -that is what 2 different Madison stores told me when I brought mine in after the handle spun itself off and the nut that holds it on fell off. I got a $9.99 one from Harbor Freight. I buy all my tools at Harbor Freight now. They might not be quite as cosmetically perfect but the metallurgy on the Pittsburgh brand is just fine. They are only marginally behind the Craftsman line and they are gaining ground fast. I wouldn't be surprised if the Craftsman tools are made in teh same factory in china these days. That, and I refuse to shop at K-mart.

For me, the perfect fastener system was used in the Gen1 VFR. Why Honda went away from simple and easy fairing fasteners and towards the horrible abortions of engineering that they use now is beyond me.

Because the problem isn't too low of an impedance, it's too HIGH of one. Adding more insulating goop to the metal-to-metal contacts isn't going to reduce resistance/impedance, which is what we want. If you want slather the outside of the connector with that stuff it's OK because it helps keep the moisture out -but that's about all the good it does IMHO. Using dialectric, which is non-conducting, to improve metal/metal electrical contacts is counter-productive.

Why bother leaving the connector if you are bypassing it? What purpose does this serve to maintain this vestigial connector? -in case you someday want to go back to stock?

That stuff is good. But I hate even going into a Radio Shack Phone-Plan Hut these days. I'll avoid that if at all possible. I hate Radio-Shack Phone Plan Hut! I use Ox-Gard because you can find it in just about any hardware store or home-improvement store that has an electrical department -and fairly cheap. A $5 bottle will last your average person a lifetime. At work I order NOALOX because that is what an electrical wholesale house carries (GB is only starting to become more popular in the commercial sector). As a commercial electrician I wouldn't think of putting anything together without anti-ox grease unless it was just a temporary plug-type connection. The connections are the weak spot of any wiring system. And a spring-type connection is bound to fail sooner or later if it is outside and exposed to the elements. A good way to apply the grease is with a tiny screwdriver and put it on the metal parts only (this stuff is conductive so you don't want to just goob it in there so that the pins of a multi-pin connector are shorting out to each other. A dental pick also works well in very small connections like bullet connectors or the tiny pins of a larger number wire connector such as a 6-8P + connector.

I2R heating might be a problem. It just might be that the very act of unplugging and re-plugging the 3P connector into a different R/R has cleaned it up enough temporarily to reduce the resistance at the 3P connector. As it was said by Rangemaster, one solution is to get rid of the 3P alltogether -but another good solution would be to carefully clean the connector with contact cleaner and then carefully cover the contact points with anti-oxidant grease so that they make a good oxidation-free connection with minimum electrical impedance. Heat generated at the connector will be conducted right down the copper of the wire and heat it for many inches and make it seem like the wires itself are the issue. But remember the wires are covered by thermoplastic insulation that not only insulates against electrical potential but also keeps heat in too. We are only talking about a very small amount of current here and the wire is sized to be able to handle it. Were talking something like 10A per conductor at the voltages we are talking about at the primary AC side of the R/R. The DC side is fused at 30A. It's not the wires, it is the connection., I think the stock wires are #14AWG -they should be able to handle about 25-30 amps in free air without burning up. There is NO WAY that the AC side is putting out 30A 3-phase at 50-ish volts. That enough power to nearly run your whole house nearly as long as you didn't have everything on at once. In reality the stator is probably putting out something more like 5A each leg max. It's not the wires, it's the 3P connector.

Also, don't forget that this 80% figure quoted at this website is using their own fan spinning BACKWARDS to convert from a tractor to a pusher by reversing flow without changing the blade pitch. Switching to the VTR fan changes the blade pitch to one that was designed to be a pusher. Does the VTR suffer from a heat issue? Perhaps there is something to the lean-running effecting the hot-running issue. But since I've personally had no more overheating issues with the fan swap I'm going to consider the problem fixed on my bike, and after a full season of it being fixed I'll just forget about the fan, the worry about overheating in traffic, and just get on with my life. If people want to put in a bunch of cobbled-up switches and mess around trying to think FOR the cooling system rather than just fixing it once and for all and then being able to ignore it like any properly-designed vehicle where it just WORKS, then more power to them. Me, I've found my solution. I thank you for showing it to me and convincing me to try it. It was one of the easiest mods I've ever done to the bike as well as one of the cheapest. So far it's just fixed the problem. I'm sick of fighting the nay-sayers who say it's not going to work. It does.

Yeah, when the bike belches out all the coolant and you are stuck at the side of the road waiting for it to cool down and either have to find some coolant and refill it (after pulling off the bodywork) -or call a truck to come tow you. But at least you can wear your shorts and flip-flops instead of proper ATGATT... Works like it is supposed to! :fing02:

It's not an issue. Ohms/foot of #12 wire is 0.001588. Let's get real here...

The Superhawk fan swap is the "hot" setup. Works for me. The thing just cools off regardless. No more watching the temps climb up when in walking-speed and stop&go traffic.

The thing to remember about a magnetic mount bag is that it has MAGNETS in them. Set the bag down on the filthy ground or in a shop, garage, gas station and I can almost GAURANTEE that there will be metal filings in among that dirt. The magnets are going to pick them right out of the dirt and hold them against the inner flaps of the tank bag. When the bag is put back onto the tank you now have metal teeth that will eat into the paint. NOT GOOD. I agree, never set the bag down anywhere but onto the seat when you are fueling up. If you must take the bag off the bike bring it inside to a nice clean shelf that is free from dirt and METAL FILINGS ( :fing02: ) It's also a good idea to check the soft fabric that covers the inside of the tank bag to make sure it is free of dirt and (need I say it again?) metal filings. Once dirt and grit get caught in this soft fabric it'll become an abrasive surface for your tank if you care about that stuff. Me, I've got my tank covered in roll-on bedliner. I'm more afraid of the tank chewing up the tank bag than the bag hurting the tank. That's the way I like it.