Burnt connectors coming from R/R

[kinch]

Hey all, I've been trying to troubleshoot a charging issue by reading the stator papers (I'm very new to electrical) and when I followed the wires coming from my Regulator/Rectifier I saw that the red and red/white wires were burned at the connectors and the connectors had white corrosion on them (picture below, sorry about the blurred image). Any suggestions of where to start to resolve the problem?

Thanks

[Matchless]

They may have overheated due to poor contact and corrosion. The best is to cut them out and fit blade terminals that are insulated and terminated on the wires properly.

[J_C]

Agreed. Also, check down the line towards the battery to make sure the terminal leads are also in good shape.

[Dave8338]

What they said. Corrosion causes resistance...resistance causes heat.

[kinch]

Noted, thanks. I'll get those replaced and continue to check all of the other connections as well.

Could those bad connections alone cause a charging issue or would it lead to an issue with the R/R?

[Matchless]

You MUST test the stator and the R/R and your battery. Have a read through the stator papers all the detail and answers are there.

It is also a very good idea to make sure your R/R has a direct ground with clean terminals to the battery negative. Get some contact cleaner, abrasive cleaner and dielectric grease.

The above 3 items make up your charging system and if any one of them fail it is not unheard of the others failing as well. They usually die from unecessary overworking (heat) during a fault condition!

[kinch]

Thanks, back to the stator papers!

[posplayr]

Take Heart

When I bought my GS750EX (81) and checked the charging performance I found burnt wires in the same place. After sorting out the grounds (see the various links), my system resumed completely proper operation without changing out any parts. Not saying yours is not broken, just sort out the wiring before buying new parts.

If you look I have recommended changes to the stator pages in that the voltage drop (less than 0.2V) across R/R to battery be measured at 4000 RPM as per the manual. Make sure at 4K you have less than 0.5V more is too much.

Posplayr

[Nessism]

It is also a very good idea to make sure your R/R has a direct ground with clean terminals to the battery negative.

Take close note of what Matchless is saying: run ground direct from R/R to battery. One of the most common problems on all GS bikes is a bad ground on the R/R.

[kinch]

Will do, thanks again.

To run a direct ground from the r/r to the negative battery terminal do I just pull the ground wire out of the wire group and connect it straight to the - battery terminal or do I have to leave the existing ground wire and fashion another to the terminal?

Sorry, I'm green.

[kinch]

bumping up.....

[Nessism]

Will do, thanks again.

To run a direct ground from the r/r to the negative battery terminal do I just pull the ground wire out of the wire group and connect it straight to the - battery terminal or do I have to leave the existing ground wire and fashion another to the terminal?

Sorry, I'm green.

Find your R/R and look at it. There will be a short black wire with a loop attached to it that is screwed down to the battery box. Problem is that the battery box is rubber mounted and the ground path is through a couple of thin metal sleeves through the center of the grommets. Remove the ground wire from the screw and put the screw back in. Next, fashion and extension wire so that ground wire goes directly to the negative post of the battery. In many cases, this is all that's needed to fix the typical Suzuki charging problem.

[doctorgonzo]

While you have the wire and crimping tool out I'd check ALL the connectors and probably swap that fuse block for a modern ATC one as well.

[Froudster]

That sounds like good advice to run the earth wire from the r/r direct to the battery neg, I'm gonna go and do it now.
As some of you will have read in one of my posts, my newly aquired GS1000 was not charging. I found the wires from the r/r were burnt and discoloured as in the photos on this post so I thought great I've found the problem......NO
I ended up changing the r/r and the generator coils with Electrex parts and the problem is now solved

[kinch]

Thanks again Nessism.

I got insulated blade connectors and swapped out the burnt ones and a couple that looked a bit suspect. I'll run that ground from the R/R to the - terminal now and then comes the beseeching of the supernatural motorcycle powers that my stator and R/R are still working.