Okay heres the deal. I just had to pull the inner primary to replace the starter jackshaft seal (mainshaft as well). Pulled it all apart and got everything back together and no leaks. Great, right? Well, now all of a sudden I seem to be having a charging issue. I noticed today that at idle the voltage was 11 ish. It will get up to 13 ish (according to the gauge). Battery is 5 years old but has 12 ish volts no load. Could something have happened when I pulled the inner primary and shorted the stator? Nothing poked or stuck into the rotor etc... No funny smells when it came apart. I tried checking the ACV at the stator plug but was having a hard time with the short leads. I think I was getting 0 readings that would indicate no output. How does that explain the increase in volts while around 3k rpm? I think I got about .6 ohms when checking the stator. Any thoughts ideas or suggestions would be great.


Thanks,

Neil
RDMC

 

Quick update. I realized I screwed up my initial attempt at checking the stator AC output. I just re-checked it and got only about 8-9 VAC at idle. That seem to be well below what it should be putting out. Looks like the stator fried. The question now is did I do something when pulling the inner primary or was this starting to fail and just bad timing??

Neil
RDMC

 

..at 5 years old, I would replace the battery FIRST. It's something you need to do anyhow, so if that turns out NOT to be the issue, you haven't wasted any money. 5 years is good on a batt. If you are getting a true 13 volts off idle, then the stator should be working, plus, you are correct in that usually you will smell that tell tale burnt electrics smell when you are close to it with the primary off. I'm not strong on electrics, but it may be a spent battery. Like I said, it needs one anyway at this point, so why not try that first.

 

looks like you found the problem before I could get my post to go through!

 

Thanks Joe. Not too happy about having to pull the inner primary off again.

Neil
RDMC

 

you gonna get a new battery though? I would...mine is on it's 6th season, and i will get a new one this fall...don't want to get stranded. Good like with the stator. Had one go on me when I was at the Harley Rendezvous in upstate NY bout 7 years ago on my 98 Fatboy. Had to push start the bike each time I shut it off on the way home to Mass. Probably 4-5 times,(gas,food, **** stops)...kinda sucked

 

You don't measure the AC volts at idle. you measure them @ 2,000 RPM. If you get anything close to 14v you are good to go. You might also want to check the volt gauge plug as they tend to work loose after some years. Mine was loose and would only read 10v. I thought my stator was fried but all I had to do was zip tie the plug together.

 

You should be able to get to it by just removing the outer cover. The stator should read 12-15 vac at idle, 60-80 vac at 2000+ rpms.

 

Yeah thats right I was thinking he was checking voltage at the battery.

 

If you have a voltmeter, check it at the battery terminals with the engine running. Should put out right around 14 volts. As long as the voltage raises while running, from what it is with the engine off, you are charging.