Electrical - Test R/R, Stator, and Battery

Static Voltage Test

Remove the seat, unhook the battery cover. You will need some type of multi testing meter, I have an Equus that I bought from Checker Auto parts $79 that has Ohms, Voltage, DC Amps, Diode test, Continuity test buzzer (kind of like the old operation game), digital tach, Dwell, duty cycle its an all around testing tool.

Steps

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Switch your tester to Voltage and place the positive probe on the positive (red) battery terminal, put the negative probe on the ground terminal.

Take a voltage reading it should be fully charged at 13v-13.2v mine was at 12.5v. If your battery is under this voltage then put the battery on a charger before doing any further testing. If the battery will not hold the voltage after charging then your battery is defective.

Leak testing - will indicate short circuts

Start with the key off , set your multimeter to amps at about the 1mA range. Put the (positive) +probe to ground cable, and the (negative) -probe to the battery (negative) -terminal. If you get more than 1.2mA leak then you have a short somewhere

Steps

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Remove the rear Cowling 4 hex bolts and disconnect the tail lights

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Remove the ground cable from the battery, switch the multi meter to amps, connect the + probe to the ground cable, connect the - probe to the - battery terminal. measure for current leaking, if it is over 1.2 mA then you have a short somewhere. As you can see below the bike is fine


Charging Voltage

Charging voltage should be about 15.5 - 13.5 volts at 5500rpm with the Hi beam lights on, volt meter across the battery with the correct probe (positive probe/positive post) on the correct post. Connect the volt meter before switching on the bike. Start it up then run to 5500rpm hi beams on. If Charging voltage is lower than 13.5 volts it could be the RR or the alternator.

You should charge your battery before performing any of this test with a battery charging device. The procedure is the same as testing the static battery charge test, however the motor is running at 5500rpm and the Hi beams are on, my battery was at 12.5v not running you must have a fully charged battery, and the motor must be at normal operating temp in order to do this test correctly, but I did it just for the sake of this post.You can see it is at 13.5v the motor was shaking so the image is blurred.

IF this test produces good voltage your charging system is fine!

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Charging voltage at 5k rpm

Alternator Test

To check the Alternator disconnect the alternator RR connector and check the resistance of the 3 terminals to the alternator, KEY OFF resistance should be between 0.1-1.0 ohms and then check all three terminals for ground continuity, there should be no continuity

Steps



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Find the RR wire harness connection to the stator shown here. Side note - also check the red main buss wire as well for signs of burning or corrosion, that big red wire connection above my finger this seems to be a common problem with VTEC models, the main buss wire burning up

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Disconnect the natural connector #3p of the harness

The connector (natural color #3p) with the 3 yellow wires connects to the stator/alternator switch the meter to ohms and check the resistance between the 3 wires to each other should be between 0.01ohm - 1.0ohm mine was 0.3ohm which is fine with all 3 wires

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Make sure you check the the resistance between all 3 wires

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Now check for continuity of all 3 to a ground (bike frame)
There should be no continuity! Mine did not have continuity ( a buzzer sounds if it does ) that means the alternator has burned up the windings and is shorting out and must be replaced. My alternator checked out ok.

Check the #3P connector for corroded or gunked up wire connections.

Testing the Regulator Rectifier

This test should be done if the charging voltage is not withing spec listed above and your alternator has passed the above tests.

Now disconnect both connectors the Natural #3p and the Black connector #4p at the harness. Inspect the connectors for corrosion and gunk on the wires.

On the Battery side of the same harness the wires red/white + and Ground - should show the same as the battery voltage around 13 volts fully charged (same as the static voltage key off)

Steps



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Positive probe to each of the 2 red and white wires the other to the frame, mine tested .3v less than the battery on one and the same on the other.



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Ground wires green wire to the positive probe and ground the black negative probe, should have continuity. My tester buzzes and show 0.00 when there is continuity, it was good.

Testing logic

If your static battery charge is good then you need not go any further, if its low then you either have a bad battery or your charging system is not working, or it just naturally discarged over time from lack of use. Charge up the battery on a battery charger and then test the voltage again. If its good then go on to your charging system. It would be best if you could use a battery load tester to test the battery, an auto parts store will have one.

Test that your charging voltage has enough Voltage to charge your battery. If its good then you need not go any further.

Now test the alternator its its not shorted out and the resistance is good then the last possible part of the charging system must be a bad Regulator Recitfier.

Do a few further tests indicated in the Regulator section to insure its is not the harness, and then replace your RR.

My system checked out good right away with 13.5 volts charging at 5k rpm.

If you discover a bad battery and replace it - you should still continue on with the charging tests to ensure that either one of the two other componets are good. A bad rectifier regulator can ruin a battery so its best to replace the battery and then test the system after its installed to make sure you dont ruin another battery. Sometimes you have to replace both, the chances of a bad alternator are slim. But it does happen, mine burned up when my radiator fan malfunctioned. I overheated the engine and some of the wire caseings burned off and shorted out one of the alternator phases. Basically it deep fried the plastic off the wires in hot motor oil.

:: note for 6th generation owners if you have bought a used 02 make sure that the Alternator has been replaced due to a general recall on the alternators for that model year.






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RR modification

In an attempt to stop the unit from burning out I added a $9 computer 12v fan to it, I hooked it up to the license plate lighting wires that only work when the key is on it draws less power than the light did.

Steps - the idea came from AustinVFR so credit goes to him!



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Drill holes in the RR to wire the fan to the fins, then I used some wire to fasten it.

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Wired the power for the fan from the licence plate light

topic rebuilt

Miguel, is your R/R fan still working?

I put one on mine and it only lasted a few months before it chucked the bearings in the fan motor. I took it off and didn't bother replacing it.

I'm still on my original R/R and stator, 2nd battery with my '99, IIRC, it's got around 35,000km on it. Voltage is great at all RPM's.

I only replaced the original battery due to age. It wasnt't holding a charge, but the bike was/is charging fine.

No mine went too, have not replaced it either, Yusa battery now, Looking for a deep cycle battery.

Try the Yuasa 14 Amp AGM battery I've been raving about.

YTZ14-S

http://www.motorcyclebatteriesusa.com/batt...asp?battery=520

very useful how to.

thanks!

Good write up, and hello (new here) Im wondering if when replacing the R/R if it will do any good to put spacers under it to get it off the sub-frame (about 3/8") . This will allow air to flow under, and on top of the new R/R.. I'm doing that as well as adding a fan to mine. Although 7 years old, its been acting up for a couple seasone now. I ride for over 45 mins, and it fails and battery voltage starts dropping until the FI shuts down. Let it sit til it cools, bump, or jump start it, and it works again...

Ken that sucks I hate pushin

Ken448, May 23 2005, 01:53 PMGood write up, and hello (new here) Im wondering if when replacing the R/R if it will do any good to put spacers under it to get it off the sub-frame (about 3/8") . This will allow air to flow under, and on top of the new R/R.. I'm doing that as well as adding a fan to mine. Although 7 years old, its been acting up for a couple seasone now. I ride for over 45 mins, and it fails and battery voltage starts dropping until the FI shuts down. Let it sit til it cools, bump, or jump start it, and it works again...

The frame acts to help dissipate heat, as metal is more efficient for this than air. However, this only works if the frame is NOT picking up heat from sources other than the R/R, and is able to radiate it. The problem with earlier VFRs (before '98??) was that the R/R was on the right-hand side of the frame, where the exhaust also happened to exit, so the frame picked up lots of heat from the exhaust, and from the R/R, and this was trapped under the bodywork. Consequently, the R/R had a heck of a job trying to cool down. Add to that an inadequately sized R/R, and it was no wonder it was unreliable.

I'm not sure whether putting spacers under your R/R would help. It sounds like it's really due for replacement, which definitely would help! If the R/R is picking up heat from the frame, then yes it would help, but if the R/R is warmer than the frame, then it will have problems losing the heat unless you add a heatsink underneath it and/or a source of cool airflow.

Longest ride in about 2 years!

Well, I put spacers in between the R/R and a fan (brushless CPU fan) on that SOB, loaded the connectors with Di-Electric Grease, tested Stator (its fine) and put it all together, rubbed out, and polished all bodywork, changed oil, antifreeze, and brake/clutch fluid for good measure. Initial voltage results at idle had me concerned they were 12.5ish. But I went ridin anyways. Once the new battery stablilzed, I never saw the voltage drop below 13.3. That was at idle, when cruising from 25 to 80ish voltage varied, but didnt follow RPM, but remained fairly steady at 13.5V at all times with a couple spikes to 14.2! WOW havent seen that in a long time :) I was so happy, I even did a few :wheel: for fun. 2 Hrs and bike seemed to run beautifully... Thats about 1Hr and 15 Mins more than I have been able to ride in a loooooooong time. Looks like Ill have a spare R/R (scheduled to arrive on Tuesday from AZm) to keep with me just in case! Still not takin out the jumper cables though....

HS,

Thanks for the How-To... Helped be to figure out what was ailing my 97 750. I was paranoid that I may have an r/r problem after riding and having the bike die on me when I came to a stop. First I replaced the battery but the same thing happened again. So I did a newbie thorough check using your How-To. I have been lurking for months and each time I look at my avatar I see that I have 0 postings. Now I have one.

Will

Neglected to say/type that the problem ended up being the connection going from the r/r to the alternator being dirty. Took it apart, cleaned it and ran the tests using multimeter and all was working relative to posted parameters.

Thanks!

Ken448, May 22 2005, 05:53 PMGood write up, and hello (new here) Im wondering if when replacing the R/R if it will do any good to put spacers under it to get it off the sub-frame (about 3/8") . This will allow air to flow under, and on top of the new R/R.. I'm doing that as well as adding a fan to mine. Although 7 years old, its been acting up for a couple seasone now. I ride for over 45 mins, and it fails and battery voltage starts dropping until the FI shuts down. Let it sit til it cools, bump, or jump start it, and it works again...

Ken I had a similar prob with my '94 R/R, huge problems with it.....even put a fan on mine as well... to no avail.. I really don't think you should take it off the subframe for that is the only heat disipation it's guna get without a fan/heatsink on it. BTW, my fan also went out early.. ripped it off and put on a solid heatsink with Heat transfer compound. That solved my problem.

Very helpful information. After I suffered a recent failing battery and all the associated problems in a Las Vegas trip... I tested per your instructions above. My battery was new... with 2 days worth of an 1.3 hour ride each day on the new battery before I did my test. The volts (bike off) were 12.8 to 12.9. After reving to 5500 RPM, it went to 14.5... so.. I guess my R/R is ok and it was just a dying battery all along.

Thanks again..

John

[quote=veefer800canuck,Feb 14 2005, 03:07 AM]
Try the Yuasa 14 Amp AGM battery I've been raving about.

YTZ14-S

What is the benefit of a 14amp battery over a 12 amp?
Will the extra amps stress the electrical system?

Does the battery fit exactly as the stock one? (someone
did suggest at one time a piece of plyboard to take up
the difference in the gap between the stock battery height
if it does not match stock height).

Thanks in advance.. Joh

Is there an internet place to pick up a 2001 VFR800FI shop manual over that of the Honda Dealer?

Is there a manual that's better?

Thanks!

johnscudder, Sep 4 2005, 08:55 AMIs there an internet place to pick up a 2001 VFR800FI shop manual over that of the Honda Dealer?

Is there a manual that's better?

Thanks!

A few weeks back I gave an address in Russia where you can download it; do a search. Read the next post as the address i gave is too deep - you need to start at the home page.

I replaced my R/R tonight, put the freshly charged battery back in.... it was raining out so I couldn't go riding, but, engine running at idle, the volts meter was reading between 14 and 14.5... Tomorrow I plan on getting it out as its supposed to be a bit clearer.

But. uh.. with out being an electrical engineer, is that really high?

1996 VFR <-- the red beast in question.

Thanks.

Bike died on me. Alternator windings test @ .4ohm, no continuity to ground. R/r seems ok at this time (no burnt connector, no resistance to ground from ground pin in harness, and no voltage drop in harness from batt to r/r), so I will assume the battery is dying. I get 12.1-12.3@idle or whatever rpm I want. Funny thing is, the battery can be charged up for an hour, tested at 13v, and then cranks the bike once. Let it run 30sec, and try to restart I get nothing.

Just wanted to add a note about testing the charging voltage-

The r/r failure is temperature-related (at least in the beginning) so you'll perhaps want to test the voltage while the r/r is hot.

When my 2nd r/r was beginning to fail, it would do so only after it passed a certain temperature (after ~30 mins of city driving) at which point the voltage flowing to the battery would drop to somewhere below 12V and the battery would begin to drain.

If you are going through these tests, you may want to try to rig the voltmeter to run while driving to catch the problem while it's occurring after the r/r heats up. I ran wires from the battery terminals, out of the fairing, to my voltmeter, and velcroed it to my dashboard temporarily and finally caught the problem (after replacing the battery 2x).

I've seen the r/r's from Honda change each time I've replaced mine (3). Each time they are bigger with more heat fins surface area. The most recent (same as photo above) plus the cpu fan seems to have addressed the issue although the fans fail after 4-6 months.

Regards,
Zohar

PROBLEM SOLVED! PLEASE READ!

AFTER buying/replacing a new battery, stator, P.O.S. electrosport r/r (that fried after installing), Battery Tender jr., the problem turned out to be a BURNT OUT DASH LIGHT BULB that I had.

If you are having charging failure, BEFORE you spend hundreds of $$$, WASTE HOURS AND HOURS on research, disasembly, testing, back ordered parts and major frustration like i did, you might wanna check those damn little bulbs.

Even if your dash is lit, there's about 5 'backlight' bulbs you might wanna check. All it took was 1 for me, and i didn't even know it was toast because the other bulbs were lighting up the dash just fine.

I found this by extensive 'Leak' testing, basically looking for a short by pulling off the negative ground cable from the battery. Using my multimeter (switched to dc mA) i hooked the + lead to the cable, and the - lead to the - side battery terminal.

At first tests, i was showing about 1mA. The guide stated it should be under 1.25mA, so for the first few days i thought it tested fine. Turns out it wasn't. I basically started unhooking cable connectors until the meter went to zero. This happened when i unplugged the 2 major dash connectors. After that, i plugged them back in and started removing light bulbs from the back of the dash. THAT WAS IT!. BTW there was no corrosion or anything, just a stupid burnt out bulb.

Now im getting between 12.6 and 13v at idle, and it just goes up to a beautifull 13-14v when i rev it. New stator, battery and original OEM r/r.

I would also like to tell you that my Electrosport r/r came with the wrong connector plugs, and no black sensing wire. After installing it, i rode about 5 miles and stopped the bike to take a look. Fired the bike up again, and the Electrosport started smoking! Quickly shut the bike off and removed the r/r to find the underneath part cracked open and the whole thing smelling of burnt electronics. I tried to call them 5 TIMES today with no answer. I tried tech support. I tried sales. i tried calling 2 hours later. NOTHING. I wouldn't buy a turd from them in the future.

Go figure. Good Luck. I hope this saves someone alot of time, money and heartache. I'd also like to thank this board and its members for all the ideas, help and kindness. Without it i would still be dead in the water. Thanks!

See ya at LAGUNA SECA!

superloadedcat, Jul 18 2006, 04:46 AM
PROBLEM SOLVED! PLEASE READ!

AFTER buying/replacing a new battery, stator, P.O.S. electrosport r/r (that fried after installing), Battery Tender jr., the problem turned out to be a BURNT OUT DASH LIGHT BULB that I had.

If you are having charging failure, BEFORE you spend hundreds of $$$, WASTE HOURS AND HOURS on research, disasembly, testing, back ordered parts and major frustration like i did, you might wanna check those damn little bulbs.

Even if your dash is lit, there's about 5 'backlight' bulbs you might wanna check. All it took was 1 for me, and i didn't even know it was toast because the other bulbs were lighting up the dash just fine.

See ya at LAGUNA SECA!

Does this mean my stupid burnt out license plate bulb could be the culprit? (IMG:style_emoticons/oldemoticons/pissed.gif)