Atypical RR problem... it doesn't like the rain?

I just got a 99 w/13k for $3250... sweeeeeet!

Anyhoo, I rode it home about 200mi coming from super hot Eastern WA to my home in Buckley (outside Tacoma) with no problems at all!

I then rode out to about 45min north of Portland (about 200mi rt) and when I got to my destination and stopped for gas the bike would not start, the headlight was dim and when I hit the starter it would click. Dead battery obviously. I swapped batteries with the other bike I was riding and it fired right up. I ran up to the friends house (2-up with my wife) and stole a battery from one of his bikes.

Anyway, I thought it was a bad battery because it was a little swolen in a couple places and it was quite warm. In addition, I thought it could be the fact that the ground bolt was less than finger tight that it wasn't charging.

I got it home with no problems (on i-5 the whole way) and when I pulled in I checked the voltage on the battery as 13.3 with the key off. I assumed the battery was charged and not much more when idling.

I left this morning and it fired up just fine though the clock and trips reset. I got 20mi down to Auburn, turned it off and hit the starter and no go. I pulled the battery and put it on a trickle charger at the diesel shop next door while I did my job (computer repair... this bike makes me WANT to go on site and travel). It was only on the trickle charger for maybe 30mins and it fired up just fine.

Here is the reason I think it is atypical, it worked great in the heat, but not in the cold. It was 60degrees on the way to and from yesterday and about that today and it was raining hard both days. From what I have read so far it seems like heat is the killer on this.

So, with all that info, where do you think I should start? How do I determine if the RR is bad/good? If it is good can I run the extra power to the battery terminals and good to go?

I have a VOM and I am good at turning a wrench. I am a little shy on electrical though. I managed to run a horn relay and some accessory wiring on my Kawasaki Police Crusier though.

 

Oh Man is this coming out of the wood work or what. Hi neighbor.. Dude sounds just like what mine did last week right down to the charging and all. thou mine would charge cold in the morning, once hot/warmed up she was done, did a test on the battery to see how much was going in. I saw it all over the place from 12.8 13.2 13.8 14.4 even a couple time so figured it to be like you, a battery, then went out to start her up, No go. Did another test right then and there it had 12.8 in the battery still would only go click click so another quick charge and off it went. this time thou it was cold and it wasn't putting out more than 12.8. So a quick look through here told me a call to Electrosport was in order, this got me a new RR, now she puts out 14.4 just off idle. Just did a 250 mile get out over the weekend, never a miss, all is good.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Can you save me some hunting and gimme a link or PN to what you ordered? I thought I read in another forum that ONLY get a honda RR (I called, $208 Yikes!), like ALL aftermarket models were junk, just not in so many words.

Did you do any mods to it like the extra wires or a fan or relocation?

 

At this point my best advice would be to skip electrosport and get an OEM or some other quality heavy duty R/R. I am in the process of doing the same. However, RVFR has had good luck so far with his electrosport replacement. As far as wiring replacement goes I wouldn't waste my time unless there is evidence of the wiring being damaged. As far as the fan mod goes, I am going to do it when I get the new one installed and working. Its fairly easy to do and cheap, and just like any other electronic/computer component....cooler is always better!

In regards to checking the regulator, look around on the threads there are a bunch of suggestions. I would recommend check all the wiring from the R/R to the battery and down to the stator make sure there is no high resistance or shorts. Check the stator output at the stator harness with the bike running to see if it is anywhere from about 25 volts AC at idle up to about 75 volts AC at 5K RPM. There are a few ohm checks that can be made directly at the R/R that are listed in my service manual which I don't have handy at the moment. If I can get ahold of it and get them upped to you I will do so. Good luck!

 

I gave it a good bath tonight, cleaned her up real good so I could find all those missing bolts

When I pulled the tail off I was surprised with what I saw, the RR is HUGE! Well, that is compared to my 97 KZ Police 1000. I pulled the plugs and found a whole lot of water in the black connector, the white one wasn't nearly as soaked. I blew them out and will probably push some dialectric grease in there. I attached a pic of it below. Do I assume I have the newer style or is this an older OEM?

Maybe that is my problem? Could I be that lucky?

I am putting the battery on the tender tonight and will take a stab at testing the charging system tomorrow. I need a VOM with longer cables and some alligator clips.


I did the shop manual tests, here are the results:

Battery charging line (r/w+ & -) = 12.45v
Charging coil line (yellow, yellow, yellow) = all ~.3+ohm
Ground line has continuity.

Thanks for the help! Now, off to read some (endless) forum posts about RRs.

 

Yea Man, there's a lot of pros and con on the RR subject. I myself like OEM Still think Hater got a bad deal from them at Electro too, they should have sent him another one or two. But there comes a time when it's priced out of sight to look into whats what. Yea wasn't to thrilled to see the RR from Electro, still it's what's inside that does the work and at half the cost and comes with a one year warranty figure it couldn't do to much harm to give it a try. Best price for the stock RR I found was at Service Honda at $162, that was last week. LOL as I've tried to get it at a lower price, but no can do. Next on my list of do's, is some sort of Digital voltmeter, Honda at the least should have had this on the 5th gens. Bad Honda.. that way I'll be able to keep up on whats going on. Yep looks like the stock unit you have. How did the connector plug look that you pulled out? one of the things to look for is heat build up where it looks like it has got hot. you know burned. Good catch there, as I thought water was the culprit in a many cases that caused this. one of the reason I still think that it took me 25 years to have this bite me, I didn't buy my current VFR new, so do not know how the first 18K was really taken care of other than what the previous owner said. Keep us informed, seems to be a Hot topic..

here's a link to them FWIW
http://www.electrosport.com/electrosport_electrical_honda1.html

 

This is what I am going to do for a volt meter. I am not sure if the mounting location will be the same, but I liked the idea alot.
http://members.cox.net/wdgah/voltmeter_install.htm

 

What would you consider a heavy duty unit? I would assume that an aftermarket unit would likely be more heavy duty then the OEM, just from experience with my other bikes.

 

The OEM's aren't the same that shipped with the 5th gen, they have been greatly improved. Honda never changed the part number, just improved the part. Don't bother with the junk aftermarket replacements or hacking up your elecrical system with another RR.

New OEM on the left, factory RR on the right:


I ended up replacing my battery at the same time since it was stock from 99 too. Word of advice on that, don't buy a cheap battery. Yuasa all the way. I went through 3 new batteries from my local shop that were actually coming in refurbished from a local battery place. The first one lasted 3 months, the 2nd and 3rd about 2 weeks each... Pay the extra 30 bucks for the Yuasa.

I'm coming up on a year on the new RR (hard to believe it's been a year since the Monterrey run of doom Reggie!), with no problems.

 

Hmm now you tell me that Sheesh! I'm wondering if that unit would have fit mine??? I like how that looks. On the subject of Batteries yea don't go cheap, haven't tried Die Hards yet, Yuasa seems to be the standard, but I'm trying to find out if Optima makes em for bikes, great battery IMO

 

Update! I got a good VOM and found continuity on the three wires on the stator. That means bad stator huh?

edit: Ok, maybe I read that wrong. I get 2-5ohm between each wire and continuity on each, but NO continuity to ground. So I guess the stator is good afterall?

I have a new battery that I am charging now. I will re-run all the tests when I am done.

btw, checkout the little jem I got for $15 at walmart: http://tinyurl.com/38eroz it has a backlit lcd, 3leds for quick ref and it measures standing and charging voltage. I am ripping the guts out for the lcd meter on the dash. I will send pics and a write up if it works. But for $15 locally it is worth it.

 

Ok, new freshly charged battery installed and here is what I get.

Well under 13v at 5krpm with highbeam on. around 13.3 at idle dropping quickly with more rpm.

The tests in the shop manual say R/R but the fault finding test has some very different numbers. My shop manual says stator ohm of 0.1-1.0 and I am at .3-.5, but the fault finding chart says .5-2.0 ohms saying my stator is bad. But then my AC volts is over 60v on all three phases.

when I go to the test for the diodes I get them to pass according to the fault finding chart, but the shop manual has no such test.

No excessive resistance in wiring harness I can see, no significant voltage drop.

I am ready to order a new R/R, I think I am going the Rick's route. They put a 1yr warranty and from talking to them on the phone their R/R are 40amp vs 20amp rated oem. I assume that means they will take more abuse.

Code:

10-125	OEM Style Rectifier-Regulators          $120.00
[URL="http://www.ricksmotorsportelectrics.com/index.php?ch=rectifierregulators"]http://www.ricksmotorsportelectrics.com/index.php?ch=rectifierregulators[/URL]

Is there anything else I should try before I order this part? Anyone have bad experiences with Ricks?

Thanks.

 

Sounds like that's the fix, don't have anything to say about Ricks thou. Keep us informed. I'd like to see how there's looks compared to the one I got from Electro, so if you can take a photo. Please.

 

I would go with the Honda one, and from what I read of your problem, it is definately the R/R. Mine went out about two weeks ago. Would charge fine when riding around town. Tested it at home and it was charging over 13V at idle with high beam on. Here's the thing though. After riding about 100 miles it would stop charging. I stopped to wait for a slower buddy and shut the bike off for 15 minutes. Went to start it, nothing, clock reset, miles, so forth... Pushed started it, ran fine, went about 10 miles up the road and stopped for gas. Shut the bike off, got gas, fired right back up. Pulled the seat off and checked battery connections, went on my way. Another 100 miles, got home. Blah, nothing. Pulled out the battery, it was a (N)Everstart. Walmart junk. I just bought this bike and the Honda dealer gave me a 30 day warranty. So I took it in, got a call next day, needs a R/R. All I paid was overnight charges. Consequently, upped the $75 for a Yuasa.

My buddy had the same problem on a Blackbird and he replaced his R/R at 20k miles, he has 60k on it now and hasn't had a problem since. I have heard a lot of bad stuff about aftermarket parts. I wouldn't trust them. Check with www.servicehonda.com first. Go OEM.

Just my $.02 worth.

 

Thanks for you input Honda502. It looks to me like I have the new oem on the bike now, at least it looks like the new OEM I have seen in pictures. I will cross my fingers on Ricks. I did read some good posts about their customer service and parts. They actually manufacture this RR and they are supposed to be specced at nearly twice the amps.

When I get the new one I will probably do the relocation bit, possibly under the triple tree. I may even put the splice connectors on the rr side of the plug to the battery +/- directly as well. Perhaps that will take some pressure off the undersized bladed connector. I traced all my cables and they looked good, no burnt connectors. From what I have read, a bad battery can kill an RR really quick. My old battery was swolen and I think a couple cells ruptured. There is some really good reading out there on the charging system, probably written by an electrical engineer but still understandable.

 

You might have read my previous post about my r/r replacement. Basically my 99 had charging problems that the last owner simply didn't want to deal with. Turns out it had an aftermarket r/r on it, so I put in the new Honda unit and ran a couple extra wires to the battery.

Works fine after a thousand miles so far.

 

FYI, I just replaced my RR with an electrosport. It looks just like the one
in the left picture (larger heatsink than stock).

My troubleshooting showed that the Stator was good and upon start up the
bat. voltage was 13.5 to 14.2 however as the old R/R got hot it dropped
down to 12.1 which eventually killed the battery.

So far the electrosport seems to be working fine however, I did just burn
out two low-beam headlights. I'm putting in new silverstars today and I'll
report back if those burn out too, indicating a voltage problem. Right now
I'm hoping those bulbs were just old.

 

All is right in the world!

I got my Ricks RR today, swapped it out and did a little jig. Not the kind where you dropped hot solder on your bare leg, but the kind when something goes right for a change.

The ricks model is a little shorter but does not have the curve at the top, so I think surface area is probably a wash. The bolts that were on there are really long, so I had to go with some shorter ones in the near term and give up the rear plate. There is nothing honda on the old one, so I wonder if it is aftermarket too?

I plan on doing a relocation after I get back from my vacation. I may replace the connectors as well, the wires on the stator side of the plug and the plug were pretty darn warm. Can anyone tell me if there is any benefit to snipping the wires close to the alternator end and soldering heavier gauge wire to the connector, or will the lighter gauge wire from the stator to my patch fail as likely as the rest of the wire would have? I will also likely put the splice connectors and some wires directly to the battery. I figure if I do all this then the rr will not fail for lack of prep.

Behold the beauty of the new RR

 

You cannot lose by going with the Honda updated PN. I had an electrosport on my 98 and when running at lower speeds the lights would dim. it was very noticealbe at a stop. When you would rev the engine the lights would brighten up. It ran good but when I put the Honda replacement on the lights were back to normal. I also drilled some very small holes in a mesh pattern in the side panel right over the RR mounting and it definitely runs cooler.