Charging issues.

[farquare]

Well, today I got a bit stranded on my bike and could do with some expert opinion.

I decided to take my curvy out for a run today, about 60 miles into it I felt the bike missing a bit so backed off, it then came to a halt by the side of the road.

When trying to re-start the bike it displayed symptoms like having a flat battery, I.e. A bit of a click from the starter and relays but not enough juice to even turn the motor over. I found this a bit of a surprise given the battery is only 2 weeks old.

I had to call out the aa who arrived and tried start the bike, at this point the battery was showing 11.7v. We tried to start it with a booster pack, at this point the bike was turning over but not firing.

Here comes my hands up moment: turns out I'd run out of fuel but, I swear the fuel lights didnt come on....

Bike started after getting some fuel but was only charging 12.8v at the battery on idle with the lights off and 13.2v at about 4k revs. With the dipped beam on the battery was only getting 11.9 volts.
Decided to drive home with no headlights on which passed with no drama.

When I got the bike in the garage I decided to strip out the reg rec and have a closer look at things. ther are lots of plugs and connections near the reg rec so I decided to clean them up, After cleaning all the connections with a wire brush and coating with wd40 I started the bike and was getting a solid 14.4v at idle with the headlights on and off.

An hour or so later I tried again and was getting even more positive figures.

Is it likely that I was just getting a poor charging circuit? Do you think this is a sign of things to come and the reg rec is on the way out?

Thanks in advance.

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[Sid Squid]

Search 'charging' and 'regulator' on here. Loads to read.

[farquare]

Did a fair bit of reading when I was waiting for the aa man to arrive yesterday. What I found quite a lot was people seemed to have reg rec issues or ground issues - not everyone finishes off a thread...
what im wondering is do you think I've just been lucky and dirty contacts are the problem or is it likely that this will be a pre warning to the reg rec failing shortly?
Cheers

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[Owenski]

bit of a pain that the R/R is so hidden on the curvey but worht keeping an eye on.
As it wasnt the reason you broke down though, id be more concerned about the fuel light at the moment :)

[mep]

Check this out, if you want to go over your electrical system

http://www.electrosport.com/media/pdf/fault-finding-diagram.pdf

[farquare]

Cheers, didnt see that link. I'll print it out and go through things in a few days. Hopefully it was all down to poor connections.

The funny thing in relation to the fuel light is that it was working fine after the aa man gave me a few litres of fuel.
I guess I must have missed it, after all it was a uncaracteristic sunny day in scotland...

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[farquare]

Just to put a bit of closure on this, I went out for about 20 miles yesterday stopping periodically to check the voltage from the lighter socket under the rear seat. Rock solid 14.4v regardless of lights position, so it pays to clean up those electrical connections.


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