My 04 Electra Glide is not charging again. Last year on my way out of town did the same thing so I changed out the voltage regulator and its worked fine for just under a year now. The only other thing is the stator, right? Any way to tell if the regulator is bad or to check the stator? any advise is appreciated.

 

First I would check the regulator plug. Is is loose? are the pins blackened? If so, the loose connection is prob the issue. Lube it up with some dielectric grease. That can fix it with no other repairs. Not always, but it can get ya home.

Then i would test the battery to see if it holds a load.

 

Ignition off. Undo the regulator plug from the case where it meet the stator pins. Set the voltmeter to DC volts. Insert red meter pin into one of the female regulator plug terminals, place black lead on good ground i.e. the engine cases. Do the same to both regulator pins.

If you get any reading above a couple of volts, the regulator diodes are shot and allowing the battery voltage, and no doubt plenty of alternator output when running, to leak to ground.

This does not always work with a DC light test, so a votmeter is always the safest way to go. besides, you need the meter for the next test.

The Stator puts out Ac voltage, so switch modes on the meter.

Place a lead into each hole of the stator plug
You should be getting around 20-26 AC volts at 1,000rpm. The exact amount depends on the amperage of your bike's charging system. I don't know what that is on a Twin Cam.

As you raise the RPM, the AC V should raise as well.

If that is good, check to see if the Stator is grounding.

Put your meter on Ohms. Touch the leads together. If you get a reading, that is actually the baseline for your particular meter.

With motor off connect meter's red lead to one stator pin and the black lead to a good ground on the bike.

If you get a large ''1'' or ''I'' then a decimal point on the meter this is INFINITE resistance or no path to ground i.e. an open circuit. This is good.

Do both pins.....

If you get any other reading then you have a grounded stator winding and it is time to spend some money on a new stator...

 

This is a good article on it, but he does not check to see if the stator is grounding. make sure you do that.http://www.aimag.com/downloads/ChargingChecks.pdf

 

Thanks for the info, thats exactly what it was, the little lock on the clip had broken on the plug and it wasnt gettin a good connection. Probably what it was the last time when I changed out the voltage regulator.Thanks again,B.R.

 

Glad I could help. I am not a mech, but I just did this entire sequence the first week of March (on my way to Daytona dammitt...) I figured I would pass along the info that I dug up and saved to my computer.