Really...now the stator??

[Guest]

SO I bought a 80 850 awhile back with the intention of putting sidecar on it. I decided to take my time and not rush anything and just slowly get this all together. I looked at the top 10 noobie mistakes and addressed them. I wound up putting on a SH 775 R/R on it and enhanced all grounds by soldering and cleaning off paint to bare metal whenever it was needed.

Today, after months of frame alterations and what not...I am down to getting rear turn signals set up and have run into problems which led me to check charging system and battery.

Initial check showed the battery not charging.....I took a battery out of one my vehicles and jumped it directly ( with cables ) and did a quick check...no charge.

After doing stator paper checks, my a?c voltage is like 3.5 on every leg.......damn!

Now after almost a year of fiddling here and there, riding the bike in various stages of getting ready to attach the sidecar....I discover today that the stator is most likely shot.....well sheeeeit.

Another bit of reading on this site and I now have discovered that I most likely have an aftermarket stator in it all ready ( 3 yellow wires ).

Now time is crunching down on me, I really need to have this project all dialed in and ready to roll by end of January....just great.

I have done so much upgrades and things that I am leery of my readings on A/C voltage and, if I replace stator ( just changed oil too ) it will fail right away.

When I had done the R/R as an obvious upgrade that made sense to me, the charging system was perfect and doing great.

I am a bit leery of replacing stator now and rolling out for a 1200 mile ride.....maybe a 400 mile adventure? Not sure as my plan was to put a car battery in the trunk of sidecar and have that as my source of 12 volt power. So how long/far can one ride on a car battery if you unplug headlight if you had to in certain circumstances and would it mess up R/R ?

I will deal with turn signals later.......

Sheesh...thats my rant for now. Any suggestions? Which stator to get? Did my installation of Sh 775 cause this stator failure? Why now? What are the winning numbers for powerball, who will win the superbowl? Thanks

[Nessism]

Did you wire the stator directly into your R/R, bypassing the factory harness?

What did you do with the R/R power output wire and the ground? The power output needs to either go to the fuse box or directly to the battery. If you go to the fusebox make sure to check for voltage drop along the route.

Oh, and make sure your voltmeter is set to AC voltage before attempting to measure stator output. You need to disconnect all three stator legs from the harness first too. And even if you read high voltage the stator output may still be low. Thus is the limitation of no load testing.

[520eek]

R/R power wire is direct to battery via 25 amp in line dedicated fuse. The ground goes up to left side of frame into a sliding rubber boot and connects to a a red wire...I peeled back some of the heat shrink and measured from that connection to ground and got close to 19 million ohms.

I had all 3 stator wires hard wired, so I cut them for the stator test.....

[gearhead13]

R/R power wire is direct to battery via 25 amp in line dedicated fuse. The ground goes up to left side of frame into a sliding rubber boot and connects to a a red wire...I peeled back some of the heat shrink and measured from that connection to ground and got close to 19 million ohms.

I had all 3 stator wires hard wired, so I cut them for the stator test.....

This is where your ground goes? I always just ran it direct to the frame or engine case.

[520eek]

I don't know why ... but it worked for a bit apparently. Now my stator seems to be fried. So no problems going direct to ground then? ( once stator is replaced ) Oh, and whats the best stator purchase now days?

[Nessism]

Rick's stators are best (I think).

[Who Dat?]

You wired your R/R ground to a RED wire? Is that a stock red wire or something a previous owner installed?

ALL the stock ground wires on a GS are black with a white stripe.

Rick's stators are good, but many have also reported success with Caltric, at about half the price.

[Brendan W]

R/R power wire is direct to battery via 25 amp in line dedicated fuse. The ground goes up to left side of frame into a sliding rubber boot and connects to a a red wire...I peeled back some of the heat shrink and measured from that connection to ground and got close to 19 million ohms.

I had all 3 stator wires hard wired, so I cut them for the stator test.....

A picture of that red wire would help a lot. If it's at the back of the left side of the airbox you could have the r/r ground wire connected to the 'other' entry point for the r/r positive.

[2BRacing]

...connects to a red wire...I peeled back some of the heat shrink and measured from that connection to ground and got close to 19 million ohms.

I am not an electrical fundi, but when measuring from a connection to ground to determine if the connection is in fact connected to ground, then resistance should be ZERO ohms.

It rather looks like you connected your R/R earth to the bike's +ve wiring. Possibly your new SH775 is also fried now, together with the stator.

Look for posts by member "posplayr" and read links in his signature for tests and correct way to connect charging system.

[posplayr]

I read ground to red wire and just cringed.

[520eek]

I read ground to red wire and just cringed.

Well....how bad off am I? For what it's worth, I ran it this way for at least 300 or 400 miles.

[wymple]

As far as your backup plan to carry a car battery along, if it's a good battery it will last a good long time. If you have the capability to switch off the headlight, a very long time. My son ran a dead loss system on his old chop starting with a charged up motorcycle battery only, and would go 50 miles each way and always made it back. A car battery wouldn't have noticed. I ran a dead loss trike for awhile with a small series 24 car battery with headlight, good for a minimum of 2 1/2 hours. Points run with lower voltage available than EI, however. Not sure how noticeable the difference is.

[posplayr]

Well....how bad off am I? For what it's worth, I ran it this way for at least 300 or 400 miles.

Sorry I will not attempt to formulate tests to try and figure out how you wired your bike. You apparently wired the bike according to your own philosophy and have not even bothered to share in any meaningful way what that actually is.

If having no fires is a "thumbs up" for your charging system then go with that.

[520eek]

When I get home I can post pic and be more informative in that regard.

[520eek]

Here is the picture of "red wire"IMG_0028.jpg And...basically I had a major brain fart and misused multi meter yesterday. Recheck my stator and all is well