86vfr 700 not a carb question

Discussion in '1st & 2nd Generation 1983-1989' started by crustyrider, May 6, 2009.

  1. crustyrider

    crustyrider New Member

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    Ok heres whats up.

    bike broke down on me a few weeks ago after buying a new battery charging said battery I rode it to school...less than 15 miles one way. I pulled in to a 7-11 and the bike died.tried to start it again ...nothing battery was drained enough to turn on the lights but not turn it over. fast forward 4 hours i go back and the thing starts I shut it off tried to start again nothing just a low battery turn over..got the bike home got it started and the battery was at 11.75V and the alt/stator was only putting out 5V WTF? and as the bike ran the volts on the battery slowly dropped so is the stator shot? it would seem that way I have pictures of other parts .will post those later....


    thanks Crusty
     
  2. crustyrider

    crustyrider New Member

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    ......bump...no one has any idea?
     
  3. fatso1277

    fatso1277 New Member

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    when my bike was holding a charge it was the R/R.
     
  4. 199q

    199q New Member

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    for the stator to be good you need to do the following two tests: (with a voltmeter)

    A. that the stator does not short to ground. to do this find a good ground (-) and try each leg (wire) coming out of the stator. if you do have continuity between ground and any of the legs of the stator, your stator is toast. if not, keep going! :thumbsup:

    B. label your stator wires A B C for testing purposes. Take your trusty voltmeter, switch to A/C volts and pick a range that will include 50 A/C volts. Start the bike and let it idle. Take your testing leads and measure between A and B and both A and C. it doesn't matter which order, just as long as you use the same one wire twice. at idle you will get some voltage, but the real test is at 5k rpm. I think if you get 40 volts (or very close to it)that's pretty much where its supposed to be. If you want to test this really well, do it when the bike is hot, this will give you better readings. and a more realistic view of the internal electronics.

    if this tests out I would think you either have a wiring problem or your R/R is bad. if this is the case, you need to pull two voltages from the battery and report back!

    with a fully charged battery try the following:
    bike on at idle (voltage at battery terminals)
    bike at 3k ( voltage at battery terminals)
    bike at 5k (voltage at battery terminals)

    if you think the battery could be the culprit, try getting the voltage during cranking. if it drops below about 10.5v while cranking your battery is probably on its way outta town. if your battery is going this will also kill your R/R and your stator as well. if you ride the bike with a bad stator / RR / or battery, you risk toasting the whole system, IE all three of those items. ask me how I know that one :mad:

    let us know what you find out!
     
  5. Packman

    Packman New Member

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    Go here, print out the fault finding guide and the diode test guide. It can be a bit confusing to follow but if you read through the whole thing first then go and use it it will make more sense. I keep this thing and a multimeter on me whenever I go on a road trip, invaluable if you're having electrix issues. Oh and a high quality multi-meter will make all the difference, trust me, I've used the $10 harbor freight/ autozone ones and even a decent $30 from schucks works 100 times better. Just my 2 cents.

    Diagnosis Center - ElectroSport Industries
     
  6. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    As a general rule-of-thumb i'd suggest: " ALWAYS check your charging volts before replacing a battery."

    199Q knows alot about batterys and Honda charging systems, so he has the vital info you need.

    Expect to see between 6 and 60 AC volts from the stator depending upon rpms.

    If stator checks out OK, then it must be the notorious R/R, my dear Watson, and that's elementary.....if it's not burned plug connectors.
     
  7. GreyVF750F

    GreyVF750F Member

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    The site Packman points out has some good info. Here's something from the site that may be the root cause for all these RR failures. Even though this is written by a 750 owner the wiring hardess is the same for the 700. Worth checking in to.

    Common Technical Issues for HONDA VFR750F Interceptor, 86-87 [MOTORCYCLE] - ElectroSport Industries

    My RR is still the factory original on mine. I guess all this stuff started later. From the link I posted makes it sound like a grounding problem and that WOULD cause constant failures.
     
  8. Ghost

    Ghost New Member

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    Crusty, 199q's got that correct. Curious though, you said you checked the battery at 11.75V and the alt at 5V... you did change the meter to AC right? and where EXACTLY did you check your alternator?

    Again, 199q is 100% right on here. Yet, if you want to diagnose the issue via elimination of good items, check your plug from the RR to the main wire harness first, (on DC) you should be able, as 199q said, to check it at idle, ~ 5K rpm and I would check it at 7K too. you should see a general progressive curve in your measurements, I.e. 13V @ idle, 14V @ 5K, 16V @ 7K.

    Possibilities are your stator is got a bad leg in it. R/R either work or they dont. so if your RR is putting out only 5VDC, it doesnt nescessarily mean your RR is bad.
     
  9. 199q

    199q New Member

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    Thanks for the kind words guys!

    I guess dealing with all of those circuits classes, and screwing around enough with my charging system did teach me some dang knowledge! plus reading this site has helped a ton as well :biggrin:

    to be perfectly honest I don't really like the electrosport troubleshooting guide. I have used it and everything tested well when it was obviously bad. but it provides a good step by step, and hey if it works for you use it!


    honestly, I would throw out the Stock R/R because its not if, its when it goes bad. Plus then you can upgrade to a nifty mosfet type too! they shunt to ground better and don't create so much heat, also they regulate the voltage better. mine says dead on at 13.6 volts. no higher, no lower, no matter the RPM's.


    There is a way to test the R/R with a diode tester on your voltmeter. although, in my case my original one tested great, but when hot would fail. The reason why I installed a permanent volt meter on my bike!


    more often than not it is your R/R. the stator is pretty reliable compared to the rest of the charging system. I would check all of your connections, and then re-test the voltage at the stator. and try testing the voltage at the stator at a higher RPM's than Idle. if you get around 60 a/c volts at 5k rpm on your stator (make sure your voltmeter is in A/C volts too!) then the stator is good. use my previous post to check the stator, that is the easist way to test it, imo.


    another issue you will want to think about, is that once your battery has been discharged so bad that the bike will not start, or run, the battery will probably not hold a good charge any more and will be toast. a Shi**y battery will kill the R/R and the stator as well. once you figure out where the problem is, I would replace the battery. there have been people on VFRW who have replaced the R/R after the battery dying only to be stranded again when the bad battery killed the R/R again.


    here are some good sites to go to for R/R help. I don't want to make this huge long post even longer, and many people have written good stuff about the charging process.

    here is a site about the SV 650 R/R it does explain how the system works pretty well though if you can get through the text:

    sv650_vrr_upgrade


    this website for the triumph, has tons of great info as well:

    Rectifier/Regulator Upgrade - Triumph Forum: Triumph Rat Motorcycle Forums

    I ended up going with a R/R from a 07 CBR 1000. it is the mosfet style, big and beefy, fit well and was a grand total of 32$ shipped.


    and if all else fails listen to ghost! I am school learning what ghost already knows!
     
  10. Ghost

    Ghost New Member

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    HA! trickery! I sees it.

    Something I just thought about. Bikes for these years have been known to have poor connector plastic. Those connectors were made from low grade Polyamide, or Nylon 6. todays connectors have lubricity additives, and UV inhibitors... aka Nylon 12 and Nylon 6/6. Perhaps a visual inspection of the wire integrity from the stator cover to the RR, and then the RR connectors to the Wire Harness is in order. For example, a burnt plug, may close off one leg from the stator intermitantly, or all together; if the RR has been replaced recently with an odd one, or upgraded, its possible the wires are crossed.

    from 199q statement-- True, the stators normally dont go out. Its rather rare actually. I only mention this due to the statement of having 5V from the alternator. Thus incinuating the RR is producing 5V to the battery, IF the voltage was checked after the RR to Wire harness. Then again, IF it was checked before it, would indicate a further check after the RR is needed to determine if the RR is indeed zapped at a "shorted open" situation. Yet still, this could also indicate that the Alt connection to RR is receiving feedback from a RR "short closed" but only on the rectifier side of the RR unit. If the RR is new and rewired, you could be so unlucky to have wired the 3 yellows out of order, 1 in 9 chance you did this, and are now constantly undercharging the battery... which incidently, if the battery is allowed to reach under 4.889V DC you run the risk of causing a dead cell short of one or more of the cells. (doesnt sound like this has happened yet, so your battery is probably still salvagable). 119q's test of A, B, and C is most appropriate... WITH the RR DISCONNECTED.

    really, we, you, need to do some more investigating... go ahead and put your battery on trickle charge, and ensure the water level is properly maintained.
     
  11. 199q

    199q New Member

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    Nylon 6/6 is the shiz. especially Nylon 6/6 with glass fill. I just made some samples of this yesterday to do some tensile testing later today. god glass filled plastic is a royal bee-yotch to get out of an injection molder!!

    ok here I need some clarification. I was under the assumption that this was 3 phase power, and each leg of the phase would not matter how it connected to the R/R as long as all three are connected. could you explain this a bit further for me?

    yes! I forgot to mention that part! disconnect the R/R before doing any testing!

    your R/R or stator are bad. its either one of them or possibly both. you need to do the stator test to eliminate it from the cause of the problem

    Ghost: you talk about the battery getting a dead cell if it goes below 5v. this is true, but the other thing that you need to think about is how sulfited the battery gets when greatly discharged like that. that is what killed my battery.

    when you trickle charge it be sure to never charge over 2amps!!
     
  12. Ghost

    Ghost New Member

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    ok, this is mainly for 199q.

    First question regarding the 3 phase wire set up. Im sure you are aware with how stators operate, and the positioning of the pick up magnets from the rotor to the coil. So, I'll not go nuts with this. suppose the rotor is rotating couter-clockwise. the rotor makes contact with the pick up magnets at 11 o clock, 6 o clock and 2 o clock. IF! each wire will put out the same amount of alternating current. AC being a steady sign wave on an Oscilloscope, suppose you connect the 11 wire, then the 2, then the 6. your sign wave has a low peak in it. You would still read, the correct voltage AC from the stator, but the Oscilloscope would show that you have one wire out of sequence. There is no harm here, but the Rectifier portion of the RR is connected in a way to pull a specific wave down to DC. If the wave is out of phase, the DC output is severely cut down.

    (I hope this pic link works)

    http://www.shindengen.com/resources/Product/FH012 Data.pdf

    Note that even though the image doesnt show this well, the stator wire, A, B, and C (from top to bottom lets say), are crossing each load cell, and B and C are doubled back on themselves through the diode connection, to create the DC current... whereas wire A is fed back as a Neutral, (thus converted to Ground). Again, this is a very crude schematic diagram, but you get the genera picture here.


    Technically, you could take a 3 wire stator electrical set up, and re-wire it to a two phase, if you connected the two most out of sync phase wires together,. I.e. 11 and 2 in our example.

    http://desmoracerz.free.fr/Electrex/RR51_INSTRUCTIONS.pdf

    If the 11 and 6 were to be tied together, the diodes would overload, and short to be either shorted open, and thus you loose power charging, or they fuse together, and short closed, and you blow fuses and or your battery.



    For the second concern of the battery under 4.889V; Batteries which have a electrolyte platelets <--spelled that wrong im sure; build up would definitely be a bad battery once this condition happened. Crusty bought a new battery just a week ago, and this battery he is refering to is brand new. The Lead dioxide and Lead sulfate have penetrated through the plate pastes, however, I would very much doubt there has been enough charging, and recharging to produce enough electrolytes to cause a low water bridge. Just my opinion.


    on a side note, Dude one of my favorite classes in college was materials lab. I work for a company which does lots of injection molding... so I feel ya there buddy. In college, my buddy took a tensil bar of Acetal, and lit it on fire, blew out the flame, and stuck the smokey fumes under my nose and said "whats this smell like to you"? (Note: if you didnt know Acetal aka POM, puts off Dimethylformamide gas.) Very similar concoction to tear gas. If Acetal is ever mixed with PVC, you get Dimethyl Hydro Chlorine formamide Gas... AKA Mustard gas... lethal doses.


    HAVE FUN IN CLASS!!
     
  13. 199q

    199q New Member

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    Ghost!

    Thanks for the info!!! :thumbsup: that totally makes sense now though, I see what would make it not charge, however I don't think that is the case here. I thought I was unlucky, but I guess I have beat the 9 choose 1 stats twice :biggrin:

    I understood the point / job of the rectifier. but that really makes sense though. I guess I should have taken it to my circuits lab to use the oscilloscope haha

    I had no idea that crusty had just purchased a new battery. I guess you probably could salvage that battery with a good charge though, you are right there, probably not enough time to cause electrolyte build-up.

    chico state has the largest plastics moulding lab on the west of the us. We have 7 different sized injection molders, all arburg machines from Germany. we also can do blow molding, thermoforming and have a sweet roto-molding machine. I am in a materials class that is so much fun. its mainly based off of how to break things and what forces are applicable, when applied from your small tensile test part to your whole bumper for example. my current project is to take the nylon 6/6 glass filled and use some calcs for automotive applications. I am doing the plastic covers for the engine. its pretty neat, I designed the whole thing in solidworks. I do have some creep problems I think though. my teacher was saying that I really need to test that before I call it done. oh well! just make it a bit thicker I think :biggrin:


    I had no idea that Acetal will do that!! maybe that's why we don't have it in our labs! haha! we only have ABS, PS, PC, PVC, TPE, and nylon.
     
  14. speed

    speed New Member

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    Good job guys, and if i might add something here, when charging the battery be careful how and what you charge it with, if you to stuff to many amps in it at once it will destroy the the lead plates in the battery,
    How Lead Acid Batteries Work
    I also have experienced problems with the three yellow wires from the stator melting so i changed the with thicker gage wire and the RR upgrade and use a battery tender when not in use ? .
     
  15. Ghost

    Ghost New Member

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    Oh man, you are a freaking window into my own past. I hope you are ready for the buckets of money you will make over the first 10 yrs of your career. Its insane.

    I use ProE now, but Solidworks is still my favorite. I loved it so much, I bought a personal liscense. Those polymers you listed are considered Standard plastics. there are two more groups, Engineered polymers, and Advanced exotic Engineered polymers. I mainly use the AEE materials now. the company I work for now is so large, we have our own Intranet Engineering Forums. lol Ya, forums for work. Who knew!? We post new ideas, and materials, experiences we learned from around the world. At times conversations can get so technical, and nerdy, I feel as if pocket protectors are making a come back.

    I graduated #1 in my class, and still found time to get drunk. Silly. Ahh, the good ole days. Stay with it bud, im sure you will not be disappointed... despite those rediculous anti plastic commercials... "30 mins on a treadmill, but forever in a land fill"... piff! retards, PET (plastic bottles) is the #1 most recycled material. so much so, that the industry manufacturing of PET was cut in half in 2008.
     
  16. 199q

    199q New Member

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    Speed: yes that is correct, a trickle charger is a great idea for helping out battery life, but if you charge at more than 2 amps for an extended period of time you will boil the acid / water mixture out of the battery very quickly. once this happens the battery is totally toasted. also make sure your trickle charger turns off. I know I had a cheaper one that did not turn off after the battery fully charged once. :crazy: after that happened on my old XR I never bought a battery tender that didnt say on the box that it shutoff when the battery is fully charged :biggrin:

    Ghost: we have a class for the AEE stuff. the teacher that teaches it is really into making composites and engineering design that completely replaces all metal. Our Human Powered vehicle, (basically a recumbent bike) was made totally from carbon fiber and plastics. the only metal parts were the gears and chains. but I will be taking that here soon. I will never be top of my class, but I am very very excited on graduating (next may) and making some real money! I am ready for some nice toys now haha! I have never seen the anti plastics commercial, but I have a teacher who is all about sustainability and I just finished a report last night about the viability of plastic grocery bags compared to paper, and first off my findings are that you can make 100 plastic bags for the environmental impact of one paper bag. for the recycled paper, it is even higher, you can make 125 plastic bags for every one recycled paper bag.

    Crusty!!

    how has the troubleshooting been going? is it the R/R? or maybe stator? did you re-check your stator voltages using the method we talked about here? sorry about the thread hijack, ghost sounds like one cool dude doing some cool stuff!! :biggrin: if you need a new R/R please lets talk before you buy one. I really wish that I had someone to help my decision out before I bought one, I had no idea what I was doing, and ended up being a bit more expensive in the long run.
     
  17. crustyrider

    crustyrider New Member

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    Thanks everyone for all the information :eek: I checked the alternator by pulling the alternator from the RR had it unplugged so the the bike was running on battery power.....5V....even if I brought the revs up it stayed the same...
     
  18. Ghost

    Ghost New Member

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    Do'oh!
    This is one of those cases where I wish I was wrong. Sorry boss. Alternators should put out ~ 45 to 60V AC each phase. 5V simply wont cut it.

    Summary: your battery is dying cause its not getting charged. Time to dig into the Alternator and determine the problem... if your lucky you do NOT have a short wire situation in your stator. Just replace brushes, or a frayed wire, or clean and redress the comutator.

    Sorry Crusty.
     
  19. 199q

    199q New Member

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    yup sounds like a stator problem. if you decide to get a new stator I would recommend ricks electric, good product and great company. much better than electromotive IMO
     
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