My charging story on my '79 850

[Guest]

So, I started working on my charging issue on my '79. I have noticed it before but have been putting it off. What I noticed is that the battery would get progressively weaker after multiple in town rides and eventually I would need to hit it with the charger. Not very often, but I wasn't riding very often.

I started with the checks on this sight including the Stator papers. My running voltages without my headlight on was marginal at best. With the headlight on it was well low. I did the ohm test on the stator legs and it checked out. I ran the voltage test on the stator legs at 5000 rpm and all three were 74-75 volts. I ran the tests on the regulator and it seemed okay.

However, with the stator checking out fine and the tests of the regulator not really testing the regulation circuit I decided to replace the regulator. I got a Duanage Honda regulator from a friend locally (jimfj on the forum). The voltages definitely came up, but with the headlight on they were still marginal.

I had already cleaned up the wiring connections. Now I was looking at all the connections between the R/R red wire and the battery. My bike has the R/R line going into the wiring harness through a bullet connector. Then it comes back out of the wiring harness (coming back from god knows where) and then back near the first plug to another bullet connector for the fuse box. Then out of the fuse box with another bullet connector to the battery. Even with these clean I was seeing a .6-.8 ohm reading between the R/R red wire connector and the battery positive lug.

Now I took the two red harness wires (they are junctioned somewhere in the harness) and combined those two with the red wire going to the positive lug on the battery. I then ran the R/R wire into the main fuse and out into the combined hot wire for the harness and battery positive.

Now, the R/R red lead is fused (it wasn't before it went to the wiring harness) going to both the harness and battery. Also, now there are two bullet connectors in series rather than 4. But, the battery isn't fused to the harness. Of course the main power only goes to the ignition switch then back to the fuse box where it is fused for the rest of the bike.

Now, my voltage numbers are:
Light on Light off
Idle 12.82v 13.15v
2500 14.00v 14.80v
5000 14.60v 14.80v

These numbers seem about as good as they are going to get. Anybody think I really need to get an inline fuse between the battery and the harness? I really don't want to put anything else in between the R/R and the battery.

Chris

[Suzuki_Don]

Chris those numbers look terrific. That is what you are supposed to see.

The wire going from the solenoid bolt to the ignition switch should be fused. Then it comes back from the ignition switch and powers the other fuses that feed all the other electrical items on the bike.

[resjudicata]

Okay, so I'll look at adding an inline fuse to the hot wires going to the ignition switch. Then I can avoid another thing inline between the R/R and the battery.

Thanks,
Chris

[resjudicata]

I'm going to try and attach a graphic of how I changed the route of the flow from the R/R to the battery (and harness).

In the graphic the two sides of the plugs (crudely shown as black squares) are labeled with a number from one side of the plug and a letter for the other side of the plug.

I detached all three plug sets and attached plug 1 from the R/R to plug 2 going to the main fuse. Then I attached plug 3 coming from the main fuse and attached it to plugs A, B and C that go to the harness and battery.

I added this because I wasn't sure I was saying it clearly in the first post.

Thanks,
Chris

[BassCliff]

Hi,




Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[resjudicata]

Hi, Basscliff. That is the wiring set up I had found somewhere on here for wiring the Duanage regulator. Got it all wired up.

Thanks,
Chris