How many of you never changed/fix rectifier

I found out my rectifier on my 00 vfr with 26k miles has never been changed or modified. From reading on this forum, it seems like itll happen eventually.

So who never changed or modified your rectifier and how many miles on your bike?

Any plans on replacing or modifying it?

Im debating if I should just leave it alone since it has been problem free for 26k mi.

Thanks

 

I'm up to about 138,000kms (~85,000 mi ?) on a 5th Gen and it's still going strong.. in the Australian heat too

I'll replace/upgrade if it breaks, but not before

 

My 6th gen approaching 70k miles the RR and the harness are Original.

 

There's no rules about changing it. But the bottom line is that its a poor manufacturing design. The wires are under-gauged, and its not the most efficient at "heat-sinking".

It might last the life of the bike, it might not.

If you have the cash, I'd still be inclined to either replace it and keep your original as a spare, or vice versa.

 

I got around 70,000 on original r/r, stator was changed in this period though. Now, I use a MOSFIT r/r and have soldered connections and stuff (not-gona-get-into-that-in-dis-post-though.)

I got stuck with no lights or anything when the r/r gave up the ghost. Just duck walked to the side walk and called a bud, within five minutes, my bike was in the back of his pick-up truck. This was a Gen 3 bike mind you...Check your conncetions and ride it like you stole it...

 

If the battery seems to not be holding up or you get other strange electrical symptoms, then it might be time to troubleshoot the problem. Otherwise if it ain't broke don't fix it.

The weak link is the sliding spade lug terminals from the stator--high voltage AC will arc across any gaps in the terminal and erode the metal making the gap even larger, and creating a high-resistance juction. The high resistance generates heat when current is flowing, and the heat is what melts and burns the plastic connector and the wire insulation, etc.

Inspect all the power connectors for the warning sign of thermal discoloration. Also a good corrosion-free low-resistance ground return path is your friend.

 

Wow, those are some impressive miles on a factory R/R. Mine hit 18K and it started to melt the connector. Me personally, I would replace it and beef up the charging system for the peace of mind. But I am a paranoid worry-wart about these things.

Here is my beefed up R/R connections. There was a lot more done besides that, but you get the general idea:

 

Damn. My '96 is on it's 3rd R/R, just ate it's 4th battery (since I got it in 2006, who knows how many since 1996), and the entire charging system wiring was replaced from the stator plug to the battery with thicker gauge wiring.

I'm pretty sure I have to go through the entire thing again, something ain't right.

 

As in: Earth

You know, it just "shunts" off excess voltage. Thats why you wanta solid earth...er, ground...you know wut-I-yam-say-innN...

 

Mine is still original. From what I have read in 2000 the R/R was factory upgraded. The 98-99 bikes seem to have high failure rate!

 

Some impressive mileage indeed.

I hope what you heard is true about 00+ being beefed up.

 

As a 2000 owner myself, I'll respectfully disagree. My bike has been through at least 2. Last time around (2 years and Xthousand miles ago), I upgraded again, installed the VFRness, and soldered every single connection. I'm a terrible mechanic and have never soldered, and it took my about 4+ hours to do it right, but its been rock solid ever since.

 

What is being left out is the overall economics when the POS stocker fails.

A brief story and it was not a dark and stormy night.

About a quarter mile from the US Canadian border. The mach 1 91, stops. It was Sunday afternoon. Final destination was Seattle. My riding partner whips out his cell phone and calls a tow truck to haul my ass and the bike to a motel. We also look up the local Honda dealer who is closed both Sunday and Monday.

So what we got here with a part failure is a money pit. Kind of like staying in a Texas Holdem game with deuce, trey, five as hole cards...

Pay the tow guy.
Pay the motel chica.
Pay the taxi guy for the ride to the Honda shop and back to the motel on Monday.
Pay the Honda shop owner who is glad to sell me the R/R but not happy about opening up on his day off.
Pay the food tabs.
Miss a whole day of work flipping burgers.

and this dude is gonna gamble that his R/R may not crap out? Holy cheap shit Batman, we have been regulated.

 

Im just trying to see if theres a pattern. IE if ones go more than 20k with no problems, theyre more likely to be problem free vs ones that fail early. Just want to see.

And I see the chances of failed rectifier as much as a nail in tire IMO.

 

2005 with 28,500 miles original stator and R/R. At 25,000 I found the oem stator plug melting. Didn't notice any electrical issues just found it doing my overall inspection every 5K miles with the oil change.

 

This kinda reminds me of an article I read long ago that suggested replacing parts on your car at a specific mileage, BEFORE they fail and leave you stranded. It suggested mileages for replacing belts, hoses, and stuff like that.

The rationale being that it's a lot easier (AND CHEAPER) to do when you plan for it at home then when it happens on the road somewhere, usually at the least opportune moment.

Good advice.

 

I'm still doing diagnostics on it (because I'm really slow) but it appears that mine just failed at 37,000 miles.

 

In a previous life I spent 14 years working for TWA. When any work was done on a airplane it had to be reported to the FAA or NTSB. They would compile all maintenence and come up with predictive failure rates. So if their research indicated that generators on a B727 were failing at around 1000 hours you would be changing them at about 800 hours. Through this extensive record keeping you were required to change these type of parts at their prescribed times. This keeps everybody ahead on the maintenece and all of us safe.

It would be great to compile this type of information on this site and see where the averages lie but without required service and everybody riding in different climates it would be doubtful how helpful the information would be.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaqXY5IUIDc

Also if ya toss out that tire repair kit stashed under the seat, the tire problems can be addressed in much the same way as when a POS stocker R/R fails.