Howde all,
haven’t been about for a while.
Putting the VF back together after a minor road prang and my electrical problem has persisted.
Everything is fine until I get engine heat soak, when the output voltage of the charging system, drops to well below 13V, and is closer to 12.
This pretty much killed a battery in about 8 months of commuting, where the headlight is in use constantly and the fan kicks in and out a lot.
I’m suspecting the stator is breaking down, as often happened on Hondas of the era, and was certainly the case in 1992 on my NS-125R ( I know, a stink wheels, but the principles are the same).
Replacement bits seem to be readily available and cheap, but has anyone done this before?
Anything to watch out for? Is this the configuration where the stator ring is bonded to the inside of the gene cover?
I’ve not been in there in detail so I don’t know.
Any and all info greatly appreciated received.
Cheers,
Ascalon
Hi there I think you will find the windings are bolted to the side casing with 3 or 4 philips head screws, so not a difficult job at all you can test the windings by using a multimeter on each yellow wire connect the positive to a live positive and the earth to each yellow wire if they are OK then you will get a zero voltage reading but if one winding is faulty you will get a 12 volt reading meaning the stator as shortened to earth on one winding
Thanks Paul,
That’s exactly what I was looking for.
I had done the stator test before and it all looked ok. It also has an uprated reg/reg, which also checks out.
The issue is not a short as such, but rather that when the bikes gets hot, the voltage produced reduced significantly and it starts to drain the battery.
It has done this in traffic before when with the dipped beam on and the rad fan kicking in and out, it will conk out and then barely turn over on the battery.
It seems that the lacquer coating on stator windings breaks down over time and the problem is exacerbated by heat.
I’ve found replacement stators online for about €80, so that is pretty reasonable. I reckon I’ll go with that. Cheers,
A
UPDATE:
Just hit buy it now for a new Chinese stator assembly. Only €50 delivered, so can’t go far wrong, I reckon.
It is the last item of unreliability for the bike, so once I get it sorted cosmetically, after my minor prang, it’ll comprehensively sorted.
I’ll then have the summer to decide if I can keep it.
Though, to be honest, the Ohlins-equiped Fazer 1000 I have been riding since the VF had her nose broken is actually an impressive beast itself. But, it just doesn’t have the cool factor of the big VF.
A week sooner than expected, the stator has arrived and looks bloody good. Comes with the right connected and a set of crimp connections to go right into the old loom.
Win!
Whipped off the gene cover and clutch cover today to get them properly powder coated. They had been chromed and I wasn’t wild about it, but one Irish winter made them utterly awful, flaky and tarnished.
So, it revealed the flywheel.
Fortunately, my Da and older brother have a combined workshop of about 80 years of fitter/home mechanic activity and there is a suitable flywheel puller there - win!
So, when I get those bits back, I will assemble and hopefully, my FF will be as reliable as a Swiss watch.