If it walks like an R/R failure, and quacks like an R/R failure...

So things were fine. Yesterday was a really beautiful day for riding, and my friend Angie texted me to join her and a few others for a ride. So yesterday morning I waited on my buddy Matt, who evidently wakes up really slowly because we missed the rest of the group as they left town. Matt and I rode about 100 miles to Kingman AZ where we caught up with 10 other peeps on sportbikes for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Yeah, there isn't one here in Las Vegas, so we hafta go to Arizona or St George UT. And it's a weak excuse for a ride, but hey... Live to Ride, Ride to Breakfast.

Leaving Cracker Barrel in Kingman we rode a few twisties in the nearby mountains. Stopped at a ranger station and everybody took pictures, because this thread is... well, you know.


Then we rode west on a miserable twisty little road full of potholes, tar snakes, terribly abrasive road surface, and corners with sand and gravel. (Turns out it's Route 66- I don't think that section has ever been repaved- only patched, and very poorly)

We finally got to the tiny town of Oatman, AZ and stopped there for maybe an hour and watched a wild west gunfight. I do mean a tiny town. They had wild burros mooching for handouts wandering the only street through town, and people rode side-by-side UTVs through town. Evidently it's legal there, it had a small motorcycle sized license plate on it.

After the bad guy was gunned down in the street, we rode north through Laughlin and Bullhead City and back towards Las Vegas on a long, straight highway 95. The trip was a little over 300 miles by the time we were done, and maybe some of it over the speed limit.

OK, perhaps more than some of it. I think at one point I hit 140 indicated, and much of the long empty freeway riding was around 105-ish.
(105 is a very interesting speed- I got to watch the Ducati Diavel rider trying to get under the paint on his gas tank. He looked pretty miserable, and made me very proud of my yellow Viffer, which was very comfortable at that speed.)

Things were pretty much fine until I was almost home... I was sitting at a stoplight and I vaguely recall that I smelled something funny. Not ha-ha funny, but oh-oh funny. I thought maybe a car next to me was losing the cat converter. It wasn't overwhelming, just barely noticeable really.

I didn't really give it a second thought until this morning, when I turned on the bike and the fuel pump sounded weak, and then the bike didn't start.
Didn't turn over... just that faint clicking of relays. I checked that it was out of gear, and noticed the neutral light and oil light were pretty dim.

Does that sound like the R/R has gone south without me?? I was headed to work this morning so I didn't have time to take anything apart and look at it yet.

 

Enjoyed your ride report. Got a few laughs. Thanks for that.

The smell of something burning is never good, but if you've spent any time here, you know its now time to do "the drill" See the linky below.

First thing is first though. You really need to have your batter fully charged and then load tested. Otherwise, all the other results from The Drill can be moot.

Here you go, and pay specific attention to Post #9.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthread.php/39277-How-to-fix-common-regulator-Stator-failures

 

Thanks Pliskin, I'll do that. First I'm gonna put the battery on a charger, and second pull the side panels off for a visual inspection. I've never looked at (or for) the R/R before, so I'll check the wiring there and then start "the drill".

Thanks for pointing to it for me.

 

Examine the wires on top of starter relay. Any burning or melting there will reduce or stop charging flow to battery. Same with the infamous, often-cursed plug between stator and r/r. I'll dare to state that failure of either plug is far more common than the more costly options.

So, NO, it's not always the r/r or the stator to blame.ig:

 

OK, two questions: Who engineered this, and more importantly, how do I remove it?? I've been unscrewing the d*** thing for 10 minutes, and it's loose, but not coming off. Both sides, same thing.



...oh-oh... I was just paging through the owner's manual, and the bolts they show don't look like the ones I can't seem to remove.

Houston, we have a problem.

 

I did that for around 10 minutes. It's hard to grasp since it has thin disc edges.

It unscrewed to about about half an inch from the side panel, but now it just turns, easy enough I can do it with my fingers.

So I put vise grips on it, and PULLED while turning it. I could hear a little screech of friction from inside, but it didn't gain anymore slack.
I'm afraid it has a nut on the inside of that welded cross-rod that is turning. And with the side panel on, I can't get anything in between the panel and the end of that rod to cut it off or anything.

I'm subscribing to this thread- I can't wait to see how it works out, since the bike isn't rideable right now.

 

Come on, guys, I'm counting on the combined knowledge of the collective here. SOMEONE has to have seen this before!!

 

I've never seen a frankenbolt like that. Just smash it with a hammer (don't be silly, a calibrated hammer!) lol

 

Looks like some sort of quick release bolt. On my bike (the now cosmos near infininty mach 1 91) the whole tail section cowling comes off after dismounting the tail light modules.

Most of the big boy online farklehouses have pages taken from factory drawings on how the various panels are mounted and dismounted.

From my small experience, if that R/R is fried the bike ain't goin anywhere anyhow.

 

Sounds like a plan but I'd check to see if the former owner maybe thought he was some kind of Batman dude and those bolts are some kind of anti-cager device..

 

Ya know, I've been looking at it all morning, and started wondering the same thing... can't you just push the little pin and maybe it'll come off? I don't know why I didn't think of that last night.

So I'll try it tonight and then see where we're at. Battery is charged, so i'll take it to autozone and ask them to load test it for me. It's the first step in "the drill" and sanke pliskin said I had to do it. Although I thought he was dead.

Next step will be to (identify and) locate the R/R and see what the wiring and connectors look like.3

Former owner is no help. I don't think he owned the bike very long, he couldn't even identify some of the bike components.... like the throttle lock. He told me it was a fast idle lever to help the bike warm up.
I asked about the last valve check, and got... *crickets* He didn't know how to remove the seat with the helmet lock latch... he told me just wiggle the front seat back and forth until you can get it off. Didn't know how the rear seat came off, so he definitely didn't install the PC2 that was tucked away in the tail section.

 

Well, that's exactly what it was... Push the pin in, and it slides right out.

I guess I get the doofus award this month.

 

http://horrornews.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Frankenstein-photo-9-400x299.jpg

 

Thanks for playing everyone... Mello Dude wins that round.



Now onto the next round. Tail section is off. The R/R had already been swapped to a MOSFET unit, so it's not likely that it's a problem. Wiring around it looks fine at a glance.

I charged the battery all night last night, and I unplugged it this morning.
I let it sit all day, unmolested, and this evening the battery is dead again. Didn't ever turn it on or try to start it until this evening.

So tonight I unhooked the battery, and put it back on the charger. We'll see where things stand tomorrow.
I've never heard of a catastrophic battery failure... where it works totally fine one day and is completely dead the next day. Is that even possible?
I mean, we rode over 300 miles, and stopped several times. There isn't any auxiliary power draw on the bike other than the PC2 that's been on it since before I bought it and a fan switch that's been on there for several months- wired into the sensor at the radiator, so it only affects the ground.

I'm thinking current drain somewhere, and it just started during our ride on Sunday. I'll know more tomorrow after it charges all night long.

Suggestions? Ideas??

 

Battery got unhooked and recharged, then I took it off the charger late last night. I checked it before going to work this morning, and the batter appears fully charged. I'll work on it more when I get home.

I didn't get to do much last night because my sister came over to work on a Muzzy pipe we picked up for her Ninja 500. It needed paint & polish, and then we went to dinner, so it kinda blew the rest of the evening.