Mechanic in AZ - Bikes been garaged for almost 2 months now

Hmm, well since you stated the stator wires were melted, I am convinced the problem lies with your ground system. I would remove your acc. kit, for this diagnosis and repair. And before reinstalling it, ensure it is properly installed and grounded.
Will remove the Aux kit tonight. I also forgot to mention I did check the grounds this weekend and they all looked good but I could have missed something. If I need to introduce a new grounding point to the system I will, just give me some direction.

Your stator should have 3 yellow wires and a black neutral. The black may be connected elsewhere along the wire harness, so don’t worry if you cant find it. If your stator wire connector melted and crossed, your R/R is definitely dead. Most likely you need to replace the battery as well.
My stator has the 3 yellow wires all the way to the R/R. Then coming out of the RR I have 2 R/W wires, 2 Green wires, 1 B/W wire.

I would start with the Stator, replace it. Put in a new battery, and attempt to operate the bike. (leave the R/R disconnected)
I am ordering new parts online today going to use OEM this time instead of ElectroSport. I have not seen any negative feedback with ElectroSport parts, but I hve had a heck of a time with them.

Here’s your problem. Your stator connector is seeing high resistance. High resistance = high heat. High heat = melted wires, and or plugs…which allow further electrical shorts. So why the high resistance in the first place? Well, we can rule out your R/R, and your Battery. The only other item connected to your charging system is your ignition, and starter. Since an actual starter motor failure is fairly rare, and would require a series of other malfunctions first, it stands to chance your problem lies with the Ignition. More specifically, you have a ground somewhere which is providing feedback to your power, hence is an electrical short, creating resistance, and creating heat. Although the entire system is seeing the same resistance feedback, the weak points take the brunt of the situation, I.e. the connections.
Good explanation, which makes sense to me. So once I get my new stator installed should I be looking to find a bad ground or just introducing a new ground into the schematic?

 

There is probably a good chance to reason that the issue is an impropperly routed or frame grounded ACC kit ground. This would definitely cause your alternator to see high resistance, and cause the excessive heat.

Squirrel is right on too. Even the factory harnesses utilize the minimum number of ground circuits. I personally have reqired my bike, and I know for a fact, I have zero ground issues, and I can assure you, I have lots more ground wires than the factory harness.

Your "bad gound" may not really look like anything. If it was an open circuit whatever it was connected to would be gone by now. No, I believe this is intermitten. And to find it would require a disconnect of every plug connector, cleaning, and inspection for fit... not to mention every ground wire to frame, should be unfastened, cleaned, scrubbed, re-clean the surface mount area, and remount. Its a bitch, I know. Yet if done properly, you could eliminate any future grounding issues.

(If your interested, I grounded every component to a centeral 8 gauge wire, and "Y"'d that wire to the exact spot where the battery is connected to the frame. All other grounds lead to this centeral "spinal cord" for my ground. )

87 VFR 700F2. ZERO problems with electrical. well, minus my blinkers... which are just haunted I think. lol

 

just to make sure here this is what I am hearing, your recomendation is to go through and remove, clean and re-attach every ground location. Additionally, inspect all wires and connection harnesses.
What about wires inside the wire harness? Are you saying I should take apart the harness to visually inspect each wire in the harness?
When looking at the plug connector what exactly am I looking for?

I am interested in creating a ground for each component if that is what will fix the problem. Just don't want to get in over my head here.

 

Yes.

Yes.

No.

No.

White connectors will be easy. they will appear, well, not white.. Black marks, brownish discoloration. There will be plastic wall separators between terminals, ensure those walls are intact, and not broken or melted. Check the terminal itself for damage, black or blue discoloration, also be on the look out for a white powery substance... it may resemble chalk. This is the plating of the terminal oxidizing. If enough is produced, it will break your connection intermittantly. Check for loose spade terminals. (I.e. sometimes a pair of needle nose plyers to simply tighten the fit and interfereance of the blade is all a good ground is lacking) Check for a brownish or black discoloration of the insulation of the wires just beyond the crimped on terminal itself. Bend the wires as close to the connector as possible, and look for the insulation to crack or give the appearance of it being brittle. Check for a yellow corrosion at the bottom of each connector. check for ants, bugs, wasps nests, beetles, dead animal carcasses etc. check the latching feature of each connection, ensure the underdraft, or back angle of the latch itself is not rounded off. for connectors which split or are mounted on a plate, ensure the plate isnt damaged or bent, and not allowing the connector to be fully seated. for non connector grounds, check the contact point for corrosion, similar to the yellow or white powder. clean those areas well with a CLEAN brass brush. STRESS CLEAN BRUSH! use electrical parts cleaner if you like. check bolt tightness. the dont need to be loose obviously. check those connections which are close to painted surfaces or oily surfaces, so that there is a good clean unpainted, surface to make a good ground contact point. again, bend the wire, and inspect for and brittleness. again, check the wire for discoloration from the original wire color. I.e. greens will look brown or a very dark green to black color.

This is quite simple really. Every electrical device, a component, needs ground. (except the alternator, it has a natural ground through the neutral wires built inside). You can purchase a 2 way splitter crimp from your local hardware store for very low cost. I will take some pics of some tonight and post. Simply crimp on the new ground wire, to the ground wire, BEFORE, the connector, and run that new ground to another central ground... I used a fatter wire, you can do the same or fatter, or just run multiple wires to the same location. The goal here is to get the ground to the Battery's ground wire to frame location. This is every electrical device. even your ignition, and key switch. If its got a power, it needs ground.

 

You're very generous with your time and electrical knowledge here GHOST, something really needed cuz Honda electrics ain't the best.

 

Im happy to help Squirrel, this site has helped me many times over. I still owe my time, in my eyes.

 

Ghost -
I am eagerly awaiting your pictures.

 

this gave me a headache.. did you get it fixed???????????? what was the outcome..???

 

I am still working on the fix, my bike is torn down and I am going through the wires and connections. This has been very dis-heartning for a newbie bike owner.

 

Yesterday I installed my "OEM" Stator, ran test, everything looked good. Then I installed my initial OEM RR, ran tests, everything looked good. Today I put my bike back together and then did some laps around the neighborhood to test everything out. Everything seem good, my tempature got up to 208 degress, I got the bike up to 3rd gear. Probably did about five miles or so. Got that bike back home in my garage ran basic battery test again. bike off the battery was around 12.8 DC/V, with the engine running Idle battery test between 13.4 to 13.5 DC/V on rev DC/V around 13.8. So those test looked good. Tomorrow I will do some more extensive testing see how that goes, basically a little longer ride in hotter weather.

Does anyone know when the radiator fans kick on? I want to make sure I got everything connected back together and did not miss any wires. What is the temp the fan kicks on at?

 

Progress.!!!

...you showed tons of patience through this ordeal!

fan should be on by the time gauge gets to 2/3 of scale.

 

Just read your thread, great info thanks guys! great persistence! Hope it is all sorted for you. I am just at the start of that journey. New bike, burnt out stator,brand new stator yesterday still not charging the battery (from my tests) and my three yellow wires are still very hot to touch. With brown looking connectors. I think I will take Ghosts info and clean all my ground connections and try to add some more. Good luck with it

 

amen!X10000000