Charging issue

[Guest]

Hey you guys, I just found this resource which was a godsend. I've been trying to get my 1981 gs450 running for two years or so. I just fixed a carb issue so it actually starts and runs fine, but as luck would have it, my short trip ended with my pushing my bike home across town. My battery wasn't charging. I bought a new battery since mine was around 6 years old. Then I did the stator paper tests and found out my stator wasn't working so I bought a new electro sport one. Still isn't charging. I'm getting 13.16 volts at 2500 rpm and only 13.4 at 5000 rpm without a headlight on. My positive lead drop is .26v which is .01v high, but I still continued the tests because I figured that shouldn't throw off my voltage by that much. Every other test came back fine except for when I connected a multimeter to my stator outputs and my negative pole of the battery. I got between .4v for one output, 1v for another, and the third one was in between those two. This indicates that my stator is bad, but I just replaced it so I'm really confused. I would appreciate any suggestions or advice you guys could give me. Thank you.

[hillsy]

Sounds like your regulator/rectifier either isn't working properly or you have bad wiring / connections.

To check your stator you run the bike at 5K rpm and measure the AC voltage across the three combinations of the stator wires. You should get between 60 and 90V AC on all wires if it is working properly.

[Windsor]

I got 70v across all three wires.

[hillsy]

Then your stator is good. Check your wiring / RR.

[tom203]

"I got 70v across all three wires."

When doing this test, also check between any wire and a good bike ground- you should see no voltage . This means stator is insulated from ground and you didn't pinch stator wires when installing your new ES stator.
Make sure you read about the series r/r stuff ...

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?191795-GS-Stator&p=1630965#post1630965

[Windsor]

Is that what I'd be testing by attaching a multimeter lead to the battery as well as one of the stator outputs? Because I didn't get zero volts. But the resistance between all my stator output wires and a ground is infinite. And my rectifier came back with good results from the diode tests. Would you recommend reinstalling my stator if I pinched a wire?

[Steve]

To test the isolation of the stator, you will connect your leads to one of the stator wires and a good ground. The shortest ground path will be the stator cover, but anything electrically connected should work: engine crankcase, chassis, battery negative terminal. Just keep in mind that any time you connect to parts together, there is an increased chance for a bad connection, meaning 'resistance'.

The voltage tests for the stator are to be done with the stator wires not connected to anything but your meter.

If you finally determine that your R/R needs to be replaced, do yourself and your bike a favor, replace it with a series type R/R, such as those found on later Polaris ATVs. New ones can be found for about $80, good used ones can now be found on eBay for about $45.

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[Windsor]

Alrighty. So, I checked the resistance between the stator wires and the stator cover. It gave me infinite resistance so that looks fine. The voltage tests I did were between the wires and gave me 70v across all three. The test that I was referring to for the output wire to the battery was the final stator test when following the fault finding chart in the stator papers. I am not sure what is being tested for in that step, but that's the only test that came back funky.

[Brendan W]

Alrighty. So, I checked the resistance between the stator wires and the stator cover. It gave me infinite resistance so that looks fine. The voltage tests I did were between the wires and gave me 70v across all three. The test that I was referring to for the output wire to the battery was the final stator test when following the fault finding chart in the stator papers. I am not sure what is being tested for in that step, but that's the only test that came back funky.

If you are talking about the 0.4V, 1V and one between in the first post, could it be that you are getting it mixed up with the drop between the regulator negative and the battery negative, similar to the positive line drop measurement.

[Steve]

When testing resistance in the stator windings to ground, you are using a small battery in your meter to push current, probably just a 9 volt battery or even a couple AA cells. A stator wire would pretty much have to have a direct contact to the core to show any kind of problem there. When you test the voltage from any ONE wire to ground (with the engine running about 5000 RPM), you will have 60-90 volts going through the wire. If there was a small break in the insulation that was keeping the 9 volts insulated, it might arc through with 90 volts behind it. If you like, think of it as cracked insulation on your spark plug wires. Perfectly safe running a few volts through it to check resistance, but BOY, does it feel nasty when you get 30,000 volts jumping through the cracks.

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[Windsor]

I wired my regulator straight to my battery so I don't think there should be any negative line drop. What Steve is saying about the 70v causing arcing definitely makes sense. Since it is a brand new stator, what is the next step? Do I send it back to the manufacturer under warranty? Or is there a way to insulate the stator better?

[hillsy]

I wired my regulator straight to my battery so I don't think there should be any negative line drop. What Steve is saying about the 70v causing arcing definitely makes sense. Since it is a brand new stator, what is the next step? Do I send it back to the manufacturer under warranty? Or is there a way to insulate the stator better?

If you are getting 70V AC across each set of wires your stator is working fine. This is the money shot.

You need to look at your RR wiring and maybe test your RR because if it's getting 70V it should be charging properly.

[Windsor]

Sorry about the absence, I went camping and lost all service. Anyway, I checked the r/r and it seems to be fine. So, I was wondering, since my results from the stator test show that my stator is arcing to ground at least a little, would it arc more when it is under load and attached to the r/r? So the 70v I measured across the output wires would be less when actually attached?

[posplayr]

If you are getting 70V AC across each set of wires your stator is working fine. This is the money shot.

Unfortunately not.

[Windsor]

Unfortunately not.

So do you think my new stator sounds like it could be the culprit for my charging problems?