4th gen R/R or alternator swap?

Riding my '94 750 last week. Stop to get gas. Had to push start it afterwards, and decided to head right home. On the way there, at a steady speed, the tach and speedo were jumping all over the dial.

Got a new battery after mine tested as irrecoverable, and it had about 7 years on it, though all of them on the Tender. The light behind the clock no longer worked, which was odd, but the clock still did. FIgured it was the bulb, and ordered another one.

Then, headed home the next night with the new battery, stopped @ a stoplight it died on me while idling. Tried the push start again, didn't work. Got it jumped started @ a gas station, made it one more mile, then it died in motion while pulling into the garage. Left it off the Battery Tender that night. Tried it next morning, and it wouldn't start, so I clipped it to the Tender again, and rode the 800 to work instead.

Today I took the multimeter to it. It started fine on the Tender, voltage @ 12.4V. RPMs up to 4k, but voltage still @ 12.4V.

So, I know it ain't charging, but here's my question: do I need a new R/R (this will be my third. OEM one: 32k. #2 was also OEM, though the re-designed finned one: 24k.) or a new alternator? How to tell?

Last time I lost a R/R was while riding. Tach and speedo were all over the place then too, but I was doing 65 on the freeway. Loss of power, but I could drop a gear now & then and limp it home, so I did. The OEM R/R had that small solid puddle of black stuff on one side, and it was easy to tell that the R/R failed: the puddle had turned to liquid and dripped all over the frame, etc.

 

When I went to check the charging system on my 2000 I found the information in this link extremely helpful. The instructions were easy to follow and thanks to mellowdude for the link.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/5th-gene...how-fix-common-regulator-stator-failures.html

With any luck this thread should help. My 97 VFR cooked an R/R in the exact same way you are describing as well but it sure wouldn't hurt to check the rest of the system just to be safe.

 

Get a used mosfet r/r from late model zx10r or R1 or other bikes with Fh010 or Fh012 and redo the charging system wiring with heavier gage and good connections. for wiring I used easternbeaver.com.
My total cost including new wires, connectors and the r/r(from ebay) was $85. I first misdiagnosed the problem and bought a new stator .
Anyways with the new setup I have a steady 14.4 v throughout the rev range.
Also consider moving the r/r to a cooler location or to the front in the airflow.

 

Finally got around to sliding off the rear plastic today. Had the multimeter all ready to go, and....didn't need it. Unplugged the RR, and saw the plastic connector was charred black on one male spade connector, and that wire was disconnected/burned/loose. I was hoping that the RR was still ok and only the connector needed to be swapped, but when I pulled off the RR it's scorched one one spade as well. So....yet another RR it looks like....not sure bout going OEM again since the last one didn't last very long.

Any thoughts about where to get another plastic connector? Are these things fairly common?

 

A few more questions about this, if you got the time:

So...what happened that caused the R/R to fail again? The battery is fine, the stator is fine. Did the R/R fail, then overheat the wires/connection plug? Or did the wires overheat, melt the plug, and take the R/R out? I'm trying to figure out where the weak link is possibly and maybe just fix/replace THOSE parts instead of the entire wiring, etc.

I guess I'm trying to figure out next steps/possibilities.

1) just buy a new plug from Eastern Beaver, and get yet another OEM R/R, trim the wire that fell out, and get on the road. This is the 2nd OEM one on the bike. First one lasted 38k (the old school, non-finned style). Second one lasted 24k (this new finned style).

2) buy the newest Yamaha style R/R online somewhere, and get the new wiring kit from Eastern Beaver and the new plugs, etc. Thing it, I'm not sure I want to do the "direct to battery" hookup. I've got a few things wired onto the battery already (heated vest, Tender). Is there another way to hook this up without going right to the battery?

3) buy the new wiring harness from wiremybike.com, but I think this goes right to the battery too.

4) buy the whole kit with the R/R and wiring from....roadstercycle.com

I guess I'm torn between the "quick cheap fix" and the "possibly overkill and more expensive fix".

 

Personally, when my R/R went 4 seasons ago, I bought an el cheapo R/R, I re-wired it with house-grade wiring (read: thick 18ga copper 10 strand), and cut that plug right off the harness. I used 5 NEW soldered on spade connectors, plugged into the R/R individually. Haven't had a single hiccup with it since.

I figured that this couldn't hurt the airflow around where it seems to always burn up on these bikes...

 

I recommend option 2 with direct to battery connection and use a fuse block like mellow dude suggested for the accessories. I just got the new plugs from Jim (Eastern Beaver) today for my '96. Shipping takes a while for it since Eastern Beaver ships from Japan. I got an email on the 25th that he shipped it and got the connectors today (~7 days in mail).

 

I'll add my findings: there are two separate problems that are being correlated to each other.
1: the stator to rr connector has the spades on it that corrode and cause the wires to burn out.

2:the regulator rectifier overheats and either overcharges or undercharges your system.
I had both problems but my RR was overcharging all of my electronics to around 19-22 volts at idle. I added my fix on the links posted above by using a RR from an 09 cbr 600rr and using 3 1-foot lengths of 14 gauge wire to jump that plastic connector.

here it is
my take on this problem even though mine is a 4th generation its the same thing.
so I have a parts bike that I can cannibalize parts off and I did. Its all the same colors.
09 cbr 600 regulator rectifier next to the vfr oem unit

So what I did was cut off the plug from the original R/R

plug in all the wires respectively. I had to trim the 3 yellow wire spades but the power and ground fit perfectly.

another shot

I used this type of RTV because I have had it for about 5 years and it was free.

pack the plug with as much rtv as you possibly can

once you got it packed with RTV then you slide the old factory plug up and in place and let the RTV dry over night

I also made my own version of the VFRness but didnt take any pictures because well I just didnt think to do it.

 

I ended up going with the roadstercycle.com full kit with the Yamaha r/r and the circuit breaker. Jack was great and knowledgeable to deal with, answered all my stupid questions, and it was a simple install. Right now I'm back up to 14.4V at about 3k. Haven't ridden it yet, so I'll put some miles on it and check it again, but it looks like this one lives to move again....

 

Love happy endings!