Finally.....an R/R FIX THAT WORKS

I replaced my r/r and remounted it over the rear wheel for better cooling. CPU fans wont last long on this type of application from g forces. you may have to extend the wiring harness as i did, but then agian i dont use the stock harness from the r/r to thte bat. I made a new one. mount the r/r on some 1/4" standoffs over the rear wheel with the fins facing down. This allows for much better cooling as the stock position allows for almost none. I blew 3 r/r in 1000mi and after this mod its been going for 4000mi in hot southern weather. The r/r on just about every bike is the same wiring wise. They are 3phase. E-bay is an excellent place to find one (my last one was $25). The type of bike that the r/r is for dosent matter as long as the r/r has 3 yellow and 2 bat wires. Some r/r's will have and additional wire that is black and smaller gauge than the rest. This is a voltage-sense wire it goes to the neg batt-post along with the r/r negative. These are the best ones as they allow a perfectionist to add a variable resistor to adjust the max charge voltage. IF YOU OR ANYONE ELSE HAS ANYMORE QUESTIONS E-MAIL ME. I CAN HELP YOU FIND A NEW R/R ON E-BAY AND I WILL BE HAPPY TO ASSIST YOU WITH THE CONNECTIONS.
Step-by-step
1. discard old battery harness(tape off connector where it wont short out or move around.
2. mount new r/r on 1/4" stand-offs over rear wheel with fins facing the tire. water or grit will not hurt the r/r as it is completely sealed in epoxy. most of them are powdercoated too and will not corode or rust. Drill an additional hole under the seat to thread the wires through. Use washers on the bolts where they go through the plastic. I used a total of 4 nuts. 2 to tighten the bolts to the plastic (dont use standoffs here as the nuts will do it for you). then slide the r/r on and put the 2 additional nuts on. tighten the nuts. this will tighten the r/r aginst the upper nuts instead of the plastic under the seat.
3. If you have to extend the harness use some oil resistant strandedlarge guage wire. also use good butt-slpices with heat shrink tubing. Connect the 3 yellow wires to the stator wires. These wires have no polarity so it dosent matter which yellow goes to which.
4. connect the batt wiresfrom the r/r DIRECTLY to the battery (red to pos and green/black to neg). Use some good high quality eye-ring connectors for this preferably with heat shrink tubing. Also use real crimpers. pliers will work but not nearly as well.
connecting the r/r directly to the batt will not drain your battery as the diodes in the r/r will not allow reverse current flow. It will only allow voltage output. If the r/r has an extra wire it is for the voltage-sense. attach it to the neg-batt post. if you have an agm battery and would like a little higher charge voltage (14.9v) install a variable resistor between the batt-post and this wire. Use a voltmeter and rev engine to 5k rpm and adjust for proper voltage. I do not use this meathod though as my r/r dosent have a voltage-sense wire.

Hopefully this will fix everyones problems as it did for me. Thanks, Jonathan Andrews.

 

what is r/r?

would make it easier to read if you could supply a definition for r/r, thanks.
Scott

 

Regulator/Rectifier.
It's the electronic component that takes the Alternating Current that is produced by the charging system, and changes (rectifies) it into Direct Current to run the bike. It also removes (regulates) the extra charge produced when the bike is at higher revs, and does this by using the extra electricity to generate heat. This is what tends to make the earlier R/R's fail, as they do not have enough cooling fins to quickly dissipate the heat build up.

Hope this helps.

 

r/r fix that works

Ahh Ha! Wow, I'm so used to having the rectifier built into automobile alternators that I didn't even think of this. Nice posting. Thanks for your reply.
scott

 

Hey CSJEA; Looks like you did some good research into what seems to be an inherent problem with at least the 5th gen. VFR's. What is 1/4&quot, I presume its some type of metal or plastic. Also when the R/R is in its new mounting position do you believe it vibrates any more than when its in its stock position? thanks eddie cap

 

Hi, are you sure about the black wire being conencted to the batt's neg post (i.e. ground point)?

I've tested this wire and when the ignition is off, it does connect to gnd; when the ignition is ON, the battery voltage is fed back into this wire (i.e. a +ve 12 vdc between the black wire and green wire which is ground)

Pls help!