At the behest of a good friend and fellow VFR rider, Duc2V4, I replaced my stator today. My bike has 43k miles on it. It has no issues and the charging system was working fine. But we both agreed this would be a good preventative maintenance, given the reputation of VFR stators on bikes with this kind of miles.
Well look what I found! Check out the very top coil:
BTW, I know you mean the top one as seen in the photo, yet that's actually roughly 9 o'clock as assembled on the bike. The same 8 through 4 o'clock pattern to the fry as always.
As they say in Spain; A man forewarned is worth two. (Forewarned is forearmed).
I had to remove the airbox so I could see and guide the stator wire underneath the Throttle Body. Ironically, the one that took the longest was removing that blasted paper gasket off the alternator cover. It wasn't hard but wasn't as simple as an oil change.
MMMmmm, toasted stator ... Rogue, is your bike a 2007 RWB as per your avatar? Mine's an '06, but I've only got 22,000 miles on it (short riding season, unlike CA). With luck, my stator will last another couple of seasons.
Belfry, mine is the 2007 Anniversary RWB so it has the bigger stator and rotor and upgraded wiring.
I'm quite sure its the distance traveled that determines stator life. Reading up on other forums specific to different makes of bikes, stator failure is not exclusive to Honda. I recently had a friend with a Suzuki Boulevard with 70k miles and his stator went nuclear and melted the wires to his battery. He had to replace a bunch of stuff including his stator. I suppose these things just live in a harsh environment.
I wouldn't worry about yours at 22k miles. But regularly inspect the connection at every oil change. See any browning of the connector area and I would immediately replace the stator. My connector still looked really good BTW. Knowing what I know now, I would say replace that stator like a wear item at 35k/40k miles whether or not it's working right. It's cheap insurance for a roadside breakdown or fried wires/connectors, or killing your battery, or all of the above.
I had to remove the airbox so I could see and guide the stator wire underneath the Throttle Body. Ironically, the one that took the longest was removing that blasted paper gasket off the alternator cover. It wasn't hard but wasn't as simple as an oil change.
There's an easier way! When you disconnect the old stator, tie some string around the connectors. Pull the stator wires out to the left side of the bike and feed the string through. Mount the new stator and tie that string to its connectors. Pull the string through to the right side and the connectors follow!
I tried that and the boxed connector at the other end of the stator wire kept getting stuck on something that I could not see as I was pulling it out from the left side. I just got frustrated after 45 minutes of guessing which way to twist that connector. I cut that f***ker and it went right through. I removed the airbox for the next step of guiding the NEW boxed connector from left and right. That step went without a hitch. Removing the airbox was actually pretty easy.
I would say, if you're going to replace the stator, make it at the same time you want to synchronize the starter valves and replacing the front CCT. Since all the requires removing the airbox anyway.
I just replaced my second oem stator recently , once over 50,000 mile you are on borrowed time. Both of mine exceeded post 50,000 mile life. Im now on the 3rd oem stator.
BTW its been about a year since Ive been on this site, constantly freezes up using internet explorer, something about a long script.
Feeding the connector through, I removed the wires from the connector, then reinserted after threaded through. Took a little bit to figure out how to do that.
MMMmmm, toasted stator ... Rogue, is your bike a 2007 RWB as per your avatar? Mine's an '06, but I've only got 22,000 miles on it (short riding season, unlike CA). With luck, my stator will last another couple of seasons.
Belfry,
Mine is 2007 RWB with 27K and I had to replace mine last month. Sometimes its worth checking the output.
I had to change out marriedman's stator on his 2007 at 14K miles. Its seems that '07s do have a stator life problem based on the number of threads on them....
I had to change out marriedman's stator on his 2007 at 14K miles. Its seems that '07s do have a stator life problem based on the number of threads on them....
It was a pain in the ass to do the R/R and stator right on the 6th gen compared to the 5th, right mello?!
It was a pain in the ass to do the R/R and stator right on the 6th gen compared to the 5th, right mello?!
Stator replacement is pretty much identical between 5th and 6th as far as I know. 6th gen R/R is located in a different spot, so depending on your goals with it, it could be more time consuming if you want to relocate it to another spot.
I would think that on the 6th Gen one would need to remove the upper fairing. That's not that hard. Once it's off may be a good time to upgrade the headlight bulbs and clean up all the dust!
The only *bad* thing about the R/R a PITA was running the wiring from the stator to the R/R through the V of the engine. When mello_dude and I did my 6th gen, we (he) beefed up the wiring and replaced all the connections. On the 5th gen, there is just so much more room with the R/R on the back left side of the bike.
That connector is big, I found it not easy and just removed the wires from connector , routed and the reconnected the plug, even that was technique sensitive.
as you pull out the "old" wires, attach a bit of string to the plug. Affix the string to the "new" plug and hey presto!!!
Essentially did that with using some wire around the connector to fish it between the V. Still it takes a few good curse words and gumption to guide it with a couple screw drivers to get it thru there. (Left! Back! No forward!, Shit, move right! lol) Plus the additional length of wiring from R/R from the front of the bike around the back to the battery. Its just a bit of extra work compared to the 5th gen, R/R and battery are 3 inches apart and the stator is also on the left side. Still all totally doable. .................................................(By now, no charging system is gonna beat me.)
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