gs 550l black & decker 18 volt battery to get me home

[qcktvr]

Interesting thread, but, if you have a good battery and a voltmeter on board you should not be stranded.. if you normally run with say 14v displayed all is fine.. If you see the charging volts dropping kill your headlamp ( if it's not dark of course), the charging system is likely still putting out enough juice to keep you running for hours, if it has died completely you will still be okay for quite awhile (hours)
I feel sooo much more comfortable seeing 14v (14.2 at battery) glowing in front of me..
Regards
Trevor

[greg78gs750]

again, why not fix the "known electrical problems"? I mean, i guess it's an interesting experiment, but these bikes are very reliable once sorted. I just don't get it.

[whatparthurts]

curious?

again, why not fix the "known electrical problems"? I mean, i guess it's an interesting experiment, but these bikes are very reliable once sorted. I just don't get it.

OK, I'll forget about back up and ride it till it stops, leave it on the kickstand then take the bus home.

[whatparthurts]

Interesting thread, but, if you have a good battery and a voltmeter on board you should not be stranded.. if you normally run with say 14v displayed all is fine.. If you see the charging volts dropping kill your headlamp ( if it's not dark of course), the charging system is likely still putting out enough juice to keep you running for hours, if it has died completely you will still be okay for quite awhile (hours)
I feel sooo much more comfortable seeing 14v (14.2 at battery) glowing in front of me..
Regards
Trevor

Just switched the lights to LED. Good voltage and lights. Took a while to change the light in the windjammer but I got it.

[seanarthurmachado]

Unless you have switched to a model of R/R such as the Polaris 775 which cuts off power production as needed then your LED might be doing more harm than good.

My understanding is that there are 2 types of charging issues.... Undercharging which could be bad wiring, bad stator, ect or OVERCHARGING. if you receive the electrical load being used by switching to led then it might stress out the regulator/rectifier if you have an older shunt model that dumped electrical excess as heat, it may burn up.

I would personally suggest a voltometer on the bike to monitor, clean up all wires test all, and if you can afford the cash go to a 775 type rr.

[dorkburger]

Posplayr has the lowdown on all of that in his signature links. This laymans understanding is that the stock setup sends unused extra current back to the stator causing heat and eventual failure, so leds + stock charging setup = less power consumed, and even more current sent back to the stator.

[tkent02]

OK, I'll forget about back up and ride it till it stops, leave it on the kickstand then take the bus home.

Why would it stop?
I haven't had one stop yet, been riding them since 1977. Half million miles or so.
I do a little bit of maintenance occasionally.

[seanarthurmachado]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Was this a case where you wanted to have a backup because there was a problem and you wanted to be able to get back home if it happened to cause an issue ?

Or are you concerned that in spite of all other things done the bike will break down ?

Just make it right, keep a good battery and install a voltometer and will get warning before anything happens.

[whatparthurts]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Was this a case where you wanted to have a backup because there was a problem and you wanted to be able to get back home if it happened to cause an issue ?

Or are you concerned that in spite of all other things done the bike will break down ?

Just make it right, keep a good battery and install a voltometer and will get warning before anything happens.

Here is the scoop. I purchased the 86 gs 550L for adventure riding. Leaving Phoenix in any direction, the speed limit is 75 and traffic is even faster. 250 miles is a short trip for me. This site has given me valuable information on building a quality bike. Last week, I got tired of waiting for my Polaris R/R to come in the mail so I took the R/R off my 79 GS 750E. It worked fine, but this morning the post said the Polaris was better. So I switched the GS R/R for the Polaris R/R.

I installed a voltage gauge like you said, and all systems are up and working fine.

I plan to build an igniter from Cavalier coils and or Jeep Patriot coilpacks and the GM HEI thingys. Just wondering, I have 4 coil packs from a jeep patriot. would the HEI system fire the patriot coil packs? Imagine a GS550L with 4 jeep patriot coil packs. If anyone knows anythibng about the patriot coilpacks, please help me out. I have all the parts to build it,

[Mista M]

You are way over thinking this.
Katana coils from the 90's or 00, gm hei set up and be done. Or look up member spyug, he retrofit another model gs ignitor with success

[whatparthurts]

You are way over thinking this.
Katana coils from the 90's or 00, gm hei set up and be done. Or look up member spyug, he retrofit another model gs ignitor with success

I appreciate your comments, New ideas are what I am looking for. My bike runs great, Hope it stays that way for a long time.

[whatparthurts]

This is what all my igniter concern is about, strait from the good ol WWW:

welcome to the 83-86 550 bad ignitor club.
750 and 1150 ignitor's will plug right into your harness but WILL NOT WORK.
good luck!

There are two solutions for the person willing to do some retro fitting and basic wiring.
I wired up a gm hei ignition module with a mechanical advance unit. Slotted my ignition plate to accomodate for timing. Fired it up and was happy. I ended up finding a good used working unit and swapped that onto my bike.

If you search out spyug's threads, he was successful in using a stock gs ignitor. Worth a look.

A very long story short blowerbike was correct. nothing fit my bike.. Seeing as vintage torque fest is coming up i'm giving up and going back to a stock set up. haha after destroying my signal generator i'm now 5 steps behind. But thanks for the interest everybody. Maybe ill try and figure out a way to run a different set up come this winter so we all can never worry about these p.o.s. ignitors anymore