swas

Very nice, now that's gotta be better than work!!!

That is great 'local' scenery you have to ride through HS

I have a 3rd Gen with only 50k km travelled and whilst reading this post right through last week and smugly thinking all this garbage doesn't happen on older well settled bikes (I have a working life of electrical/electronic experience, hence my interest in this droll subject) BINGO on my way home from a funeral I runs out of electric power, 80 km from home just 2 days later. Would you believe 2 km before reaching the 50k km milestone! No need to describe what happens next, the pushing the clutch starting attempts, the "how do I get out of this mess" thoughts, the dredge through the mobile phone numbers (for once I had it with me!) in the end I got home with the help of a friend who lives nearby having a power pack which is small enough to jam between my chest and the tank and left the seat with him. It had enough charge to get me home. After checking that the local stator repairer is still in business and anticipating the worst, then preparing to remove stator I checked the stator lead socket/plug, damn another fairing to get off, and there it was similar to all the pics on VFRD of toasted plugs and sockets. Stator checks out at 0.3 ohm phase to phase. WHEW! Solder job on wires and all is well, original R/R I think, but a PC fan attached. Battery survives experience. My son owned this bike before me for 7 years and only did short trips of 200km or so, whereas I have done a couple of 500km days in hot weather before Xmas and believe these have worked away at the poor contact in the plug/socket joint. It was only a matter of time. MORAL of the story is no matter how old your bike is keep an eye on, or get rid of, the plug and sockets on the heavy current lines. Check them every time you do some maintenance, sooner or later they will get you. I have over the years managed to get better connections in the sockets (bikes, cars, washing machines, whatever!) by squeezing the curled over tab of the lug inside the plastic shell down a bit with long nosed pliers, not too far or you will never get the plug into it again. But only if everything is clean and bright metallic looking, once it discolours it is too late. This makes the plug and socket a lot firmer to reseat or pull apart but cuts down possibility of a high resistance joint developing. Plenty of good advice I am reading for the later models too, I can't disagree with any the principles put forward in this post for getting in front of the inevitable troubles which seem to haunt Hondas. I can remember some from my maggot (CX500) days. 3rd gen stator lead plug UGLY SIGHT but now behind me.