Charging problems

[Gerald]

I have a 1979 GS750L. The bike will not charge the battery. Now before you ask. I know the battery will hold a charge and I did have the charging system checked and the system isn't charging at all. I have priced the regulator/rectifier and stator. These parts are not cheap. so what I'm asking is, If anyone has had this problem in the past with this bike.What usually is the culprit? Now I talked to a bike mechanic and he told me that the regulator/rectifier is usually the problem.

[SqDancerLynn1]

Don't just through parts at it. Go to the Garage section, stator papers and properly trouble shoot it.

[chef1366]

Read through the Stator Papers http://www.thegsresources.com/gs_garage.htm

[Gerald]

Thanks for the help I'm going to try this tomorrow morning. I am glad I found this site

[spyug]

if you read any of my recent posts, you will see that I've gone through this project myself just recently. In fact, I thought I had it sorted but it still isn't 100% nbut it does charge well.

The biggest culprit in the no charging issue is corroded connectors followed closely by bad/ inefficient grounds.

Your stator and R/R could be fine but if the contacts are gungy, as most are after so many years voltage is not flowing. You need to start by cleaning and or replacing the connectors, especially those from the stator to the R/R and also those to the fuse block.

While you can and should take the contacts out of the plastic connectors to clean them, sometimes they can be a royal pain. I have found you can clean them with a dunk of the plug in a bath of Tarn-X or similar liquid jewelry cleaner.

The R/R is known to be less efficient than some of the newer ones supplied with other UJMs and Mr. Duaneage can supply you with good refurbs from Hondas. As the ground from the R/R (black/white wire) is not great adding a seperate lead from this contact back directly to the battery negative can work wonders and should be electrical mod #1.

By all means read and follow the Stator papers and the fault finding chart but do some cleanup first as it could sort you out.

In addition, get a cheap voltage meter and wire it in so you can keep an eye on things as you ride out. Nothing worse than setting out and turning off the key miles from home only to gfind it won't start up when you go to leave.

Hope this helps a bit.

Let us know what you find.

Good luck,
Cheers,
Spyug

[850 Combat]

The 3 bullet connectors from the Stator, which are located to the left rear of the motor on my bikes, are more than llikely bad. You will probably see evidence of overheating of these connections. Also, the one which does nor go directly to the R/R should be connected directly instead of connected to the white and green wire (on my bikes, probably yours too). When testing the Stator, be careful to make certain that you have a good connection between your meter test leads and the stator leads. It is super easy to get non repeatable readings which will make your stator appear to be bad if you don't make perfect connections with the test leads.

[BassCliff]

Greetings and Salutations!!

Hi Mr. Gerald,

Be sure to clean every electrical connection on the entire bike, including the fusebox, grounds, ignition switch, everything from the headlight bucket to the tail light. You'll be glad you did. Here's my "welcome thing"...

Here is your very own magical, mystical, mythical, mind-expanding "mega-welcome". Please take notice of the "Top 10 Common Issues", the Carb Rebuild Series, and the Stator Papers. Now let me roll out the welcome mat for you...

Please click here for your mega-welcome, chock full of tips, suggestions, links to vendors, and other information. Then feel free to visit my little BikeCliff website where I've been collecting the wisdom of this generous community. Don't forget, we like pictures! Not you, your bike!

Thanks for joining us. Keep us informed.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff