New bike is almost ready to roll, http://vfrworld.com/forums/mechanics-garage/30625-checking-gen-3-a.html?highlight= been working at her for three days now, changed the fork seals, did my usual fork bushing play adjustment and basically sorted all sorts of little fit problems. Following some memebers advice I took a voltmeter with me when I went to buy the bike and sure, voltage was shooting up to 17 volts! R/R well cooked then. Not a big story, already got one for free from a local breakyard Now, my question is this: why not build an extension and relocate the R/R to an entirely different (and cooler) area? I will sure be adding a heat sink to the R/R but why put it back attached to the hot frame in the same place? I did cut the end of the harness with the connector when picking the R/R, so it'd be fairly easy to do. has anybody done such a relocation successfully? Cheers TG
I have read of a few people doing it. One of the places mentioned was behind the headlight where more air is circulating. Have been considering the same thing on my 5th gen actually as my R/R is trying to go and I bought a bigger one to replace it.
did a first try to simply move away form the hot plate that actually WARMS the R/R and added a heat sink too, but after riding bike a bit, indeed, the whole area is a heat trap, Amove to the front is next, but where exactly? the screw holding the top of the oil cooler is tempting. any pics of such move? TG
Moving it up front will introduce too much resistance from the wiring, because of the length needed. I saw someone make a mounting point by recessing it into the rear fender, but I can't find the thread. Maybe someone will pop in and let me know which it was. I've been looking for it all day with no luck.
Yep, another 20" of wiring dont sound good will make a small modto the bracket ive built, lets see if it helps TG
Really?! I hadn't thought of that possibility at all before fabbing up a bracket to mount below lower tree where OEM horn was & extended harness just yesterday! Figured the replacement finned R/R and putting it in the airstream would be a good fix...?? :frown:
hei hammer If the wire's thick enough it might not be an issue let us know how it works for you I didnt want to rebuild the new harness I just did, so I opted to let the R/R stick out just about rear of its current position. it sits more or less like the helmet/seat lock on the other side. not as cool an area as the front, but so far it seems to stay relatively mild in temp. will report form a longer ride/traffic jams TG
Understand not wanting to tear apart your new harness, HELL just putting together the necessary sub-harness to route mine up front was a mini project! :dizzy: I was beginning to think of mounting my r/r in the rear too, worried I'd missed something critical in my plan. But I got the Green Light from the Elec. Uber-Guru on VFRD, good enough for me! :nod: If I'd gone with a rear mount was thinkin' of making a short extension harness to reach onto the left side somewhere to get farther away from the exhaust. Hey now, there's a product idea... A short extension r/r harness with a female gang-plug like the receptacle on the r/r itself with a male plug at the other end... that and a better, finned r/r would be a great plug and play aftermarket upgrade!
on both my viffer i put a small cooling fan on the with a rheostat circuit hooked to a relay once the temp is over 150 degrees the lil fan kicks on and doesnt kick off till 140 degrees havnt had any failures after this mod... the r/r's ae aftermarket ricks as well there are some bigger r/r's out there as well one being from a goldwing can handle about twice as much current as the factory viffer r/r so may be a grand chance to replace with that if you ever have one go out..
Here are a couple shots of my R/R relocation up under the lower tree: Made the boot to seal end of new harness from bicycle inner tube. Bracket mounts right into the OEM horn location nicely. Doesn't extend any lower than brake line and mounts. Hopefully this upgraded finned unit out in the blowing breeze will eliminate the heat/meltdown issue. :nod:
The bracket it is bolted into the OEM horn location beneath the lower tree and turns with the front end. I sheathed the extended 5 wire harness in one large rubber conduit from the original site near the battery box up along the right side of the frame: Then split it into two smaller conduit tubes aside the neck for easier flexibility with the steering: The smaller white-lined double lead (auto speaker wire) is for my garage door opener. Red push button to actuate opener in right switch cluster: Here's the transmitter nestled in the tail:
thanks for the pics might adopt the solution if R/R ends up frying itself in its new position, just outside the right seat panel (with big heat sink) Tg
Mine is an untried setup but I've faith it should at the very least work much more reliably than stock configuration, steel heat sink on the frame notwithstanding. The OEM setup has more than one major flaw IMO: :sad: FIRST: Location-Location-Location!! - Placed under a body panel away from any significant airflow - Placed aft of a notably hot area near exhaust collector and its hot, rearward venting breezes - So called 'heat sink' function of frame panel is effectively nixed as it is usually quite hot itself due to above SECOND: Plain, non-finned case... not that finning would do much to bleed off heat mounted on what is effectively a hot plate within a heating duct! :target: Some have reported good results mounting a pancake fan atop the OEM style unit. I'm thinking more effective is to upgrade to a better unit and mount it and heat sink elsewhere, if not up front then exposed in the rear on the left side away from the exhaust? Although the aluminum bracket I made to mount mine on doesn't absorb (conduct) as much heat as steel being less dense, aluminum does cool much more readily for the same reason and the finned case of the R/R itself is of alloy as well.
There are no dumb questions... 'Dumb' is not asking if you don't know! :crazy: Regulator/Rectifier: "The entire purpose of a voltage regulator is to control the voltage to prevent the dreaded under-charging, or over-charging of the often too expensive battery. " "The entire purpose of a rectifier is to change the AC current that is made by the alternator into a DC current that the battery requires." (From: eBay Guides - Rectifiers and Electronic voltage regulators ) Also see here: Understanding The R/r Inside And Out - VFR Discussion
Thanks muchly! I'm hoping to pick up my new VFR800 in a couple days. I won't be worrying about the r/r! M
Not yet but I saw one on a vulcan that was mounted inside the front of the frame on a metal pad laying flat that looked like a great idea... You can also try a computer fan and some computer chip grease ( forget what the name is) Youll find the computer fans are also 12 volts..
my take on this is: - the current location the frame actually HEATS the R/R rather than cooling/or heat sinking it - in the current location a fan would be simply recycling hot air (its quite a well seales area...) so not that efficient either. I just went with placing it outside the enclosed area + a finned heat sink. during normal road riding the R/R stays just warm, in stop and go city riding the heat coming up form the silencer does heat up the sink, it gets hot but touchable, certainly not the boiling temps that I saw in some reports. looked hard and long at alternative locations, not that many of them other than what hammerspur or i did. the VFR is a very tight package. TG
10-4!! :thumb: Holy Crap, you said a mouthful there! This project has been the hardest bike build I've ever done for that very reason. Alterations, add-ons, everything... you wouldn't believe how much back-peddling and reconfiguring I've had to do each time I started working on a new feature. Hot spots, interence with moving parts, critical dimensions in 3-D... 1/8" off in any of 6 directions, Yer' F-ed... Sheesh! :faint2: The amount of stuff Honda fitted into the existing space must have kept the design team very busy during initial prototyping and every model change too. :whoo: I'm 95% finished finally, and the amount of good info and advice I've gotten here and on VFRD has been immensely helpful... Thanks to everyone! :yo:
