Hi all,
My trusty 9er left me stranded in London the other night with a dead battery. I keep it on a conditioner overnight (especially in cold weather) and had started bright as a button that morning - but come the evening, click-click-click etc.
Managed to get it to a local bike shop for a jump start, but no dice. The mechanic noted that one of the battery pole tabs had bust (this was a red herring), so new battery time. They had one fortunately, but being wet cell they had to charge overnight. So train home and collect next day.
Which I did and all good. Rode home (50miles) and as I was about a mile away from reaching it, I noticed ABS light come on, then go off? Then dash display dimmed and noticed lights were dim too - uh-oh. Managed to get home (just) and killed engine, knowing that it wouldnt' re-start. It didn't!
So, concluded charge system was the real cause - which explains why it started so readily in the morning, but then not in the evening (the commute effectively was being run from the battery so killed it along the way).
So I set to work this morning to see what the problem was. Except, metering the battery from first start showed 14.5V?!? Bear in mind engine was stone cold at this point after -2 degrees last night. Odd I thought, so continued to check and all seemed fine. I left it a while but thought - nah, that can't be right. So went out again to make some more checks. Engine was warm by this time from starting/stopping - but interestingly bike was no longer charging!? I gather this can happen with a dodgy stator where it works cold, but not hot - thermal expansion making short I guess?
So, thanks to knowledgeable folks here, I've just been out fault finding. I think it's the stator - but wanted a second opinion before pulling it just in case it could be the reg/rec?
So here's what I've done, following the Electro Sport fault finding chart kindly posted by others and can be found here: http://www.electrosp...ing-diagram.pdf
Checked battery voltage - obviously not charging.
Checked reg/rec - this has 3 white wires entering from the stator and a second connector with red/black wires.
Engine idled, black multimeter lead to battery +, red multimedia lead to red output wire of r/r - got -0.2V (so less than 0.2V according to troubleshooting chart)
Then connected red multimeter lead to battery - and black multimeter lead to black/negative output of r/r - got -0.08V (so less than 0.2V according to troubleshooting chart)
Then onto part 'B' of the flowchart....
r/r only has 2 wires out of it (red and black) so onto stator check.
Measured resistance across the wires using a 200ohm range on the multimeter:
1&2 - 0.8ohmsm
1&3 1.2ohms
2&3 0.6ohms
- so not very matched - but all within the range in the flowchart (within 0.5 to 2.0ohms) - however, service manual states resistance for stator on a 9er should be 0.18 to 0.28 ohms ?
So, checked continuity between white wires to earth. None appear to have gone to ground?
Finally checked AC voltage between the wires:
1&2 3.3V
1&3 5.8V
2+3 3.4V
I seem to recall that this should be about 50V (not sure if this is for an 850 or a 9er though).
So, I guess I'm concluding it's the stator - unless anyone can tell me anything else I can check???
Great if someone could confirm soonest as I need the bike for work and reluctant to strip in case I'm pulling the wrong parts!!
Ta
Main fuse all OK - checked for continuity with a tester to be sure.
PS - I tried to call Robin Williams in Teignmoth for a rewind, but number is unobtainable? Does anyone have an updated contact number for him they could post or PM me?