Hi,

I've got a weird situation that I'm hoping somebody can help with. My 82 XLH won't charge the battery. At first I thought it was the battery that wouldn't hold a charge so after having to charge it a couple of time I brought a new battery. That didn't help much. After riding for 40 miles or so I stopped and got that nasty clicking sound from the starter when I tryed to get it running again. So, I moved on to testing the generator, it was a Hitachi and with the motor reved up to 2K RPM I didn't measure any voltage out with the positive lead of the voltmeter on the armiture terminal and the negative lead on the field terminal. Switched the voltmeter leads around just to make sure I didn't get it wrong but that didn't help. Flashed the armiture to the positive battery terminal and retested, same thing, 0 volts at 2K RPM. OK..so I thought the generator must be bad. I replaced the Hitachi with a replacement I found on the internet. The new one looks like the earlier model generator (i.e. no endcap on the generator). Well, that didn't help either. I still read 0 volts across the generator field and armiture terminals after flashing with the bike revving at 2K RPM. I took the generator to an electrical shop to have it tested and they say it has a strong output. Now I'm stumpted. Only thing that seems to make sense is that the generator isn't being driven when it's on the bike. Is that possible? If not what could be happening? I'd appreciate any help or even random thoughts at this point. Thanks in advance.