What should a good battery voltage be?

[yorkie_chris]

I'd be careful doing that with it anywhere near the bike, I wouldn't imagine the magnetic pulses produced possibly making it up through the pulse coil to the ICU doing anything much good.

And now mine is showing 13.5v which doesn't seem healthy, but mine did go down on the right side and damage the fairing right over the RR unit.

Originally Posted by Spanner Man

It sounds as if you have located the problem, though I believe at my suggestion you have tested for earthing of the alternator before.

Yes, you're right. You did suggest testing the coils for earthing before and I did do the test but I did not see an earthing problem then. On doing the re-test I now believe that I may have made and error the first time because my meter probe is larger than the slot in the connector and it took some fiddling to make good contact with the terminal inside the block. I think last time it must have not made proper contact so it appeared that I was getting infinite resistance. I've read the Haynes manual on how to remove/replace the alternator but it doesn't specifically talk about just replacing the stator coils, it talks about removing the rotor, which seems like a complicated procedure that uses a couple of special tools. From the pictures it looks like all I need to do is drain the oil, remove the cover, unbolt the stator, bolt the new one on and replace the cover and oil. Does anyone know if there's more to it than that?

[Spanner Man]

Morning all.
At least you've found the problem, that's the main thing!
Yep, replacing the stator is pretty simple, pretty much as you say. Make sure you route the wires exactly as the original one is, so take a good look & maybe take a few pictures to assist you on reassembly. (I knew camera phones had a use). Also get the wiring grommets in properly, with a dab of silicone sealant, or it could leak.
I think Electrex do a new stator unit, it's around the £65 mark.

Cheers.

Yep, just ordered the "high-powered" unit from Electrex World for £65. I went the extra for the high-powered unit simply because I do use higher wattage headlight bulbs and I'm thinking that maybe that was a contributing factor to the stator coils' failure. Thanks for the tips!

Originally Posted by SVspeedr

Yes, you're right. You did suggest testing the coils for earthing before and I did do the test but I did not see an earthing problem then. On doing the re-test I now believe that I may have made and error the first time because my meter probe is larger than the slot in the connector and it took some fiddling to make good contact with the terminal inside the block. I think last time it must have not made proper contact so it appeared that I was getting infinite resistance. I've read the Haynes manual on how to remove/replace the alternator but it doesn't specifically talk about just replacing the stator coils, it talks about removing the rotor, which seems like a complicated procedure that uses a couple of special tools. From the pictures it looks like all I need to do is drain the oil, remove the cover, unbolt the stator, bolt the new one on and replace the cover and oil. Does anyone know if there's more to it than that?

can you describe how you tested the alternator for earthing. is it the three yellow wires on the connector block near the reg/rec. how do you test it i.e meter settings (excuse the stupid questions but i am no good with electrics)

Originally Posted by andyharding

can you describe how you tested the alternator for earthing.

I disconnected the block with the 3 yellow wires from the connector nearest the R/R. I put my meter on resistance setting (measures ohms) with a range of 0-20 ohms (make sure the meter battery is good as it needs to send the battery current to measure the resistance). I inserted one of the meter probes into each of the 3 slots in the block, in turn, while the other probe is connected to an earth source (pretty well any bare part on the frame would work but the battery -ve terminal was close so I used that). On my meter the readout starts at 1 (infinite resistance) and it takes about a second to register the actual resistance once the probes are securely connected. Securely connected is important because the first time I tried the test I just touched the contact points briefly and thought I was getting infinite resistance (a 1 reading on a digital meter), but when properly connected this would drop to 0.8 ohms between all 3 yellow wires and earth.

Originally Posted by SVspeedr

I disconnected the block with the 3 yellow wires from the connector nearest the R/R. I put my meter on resistance setting (measures ohms) with a range of 0-20 ohms (make sure the meter battery is good as it needs to send the battery current to measure the resistance). I inserted one of the meter probes into each of the 3 slots in the block, in turn, while the other probe is connected to an earth source (pretty well any bare part on the frame would work but the battery -ve terminal was close so I used that). On my meter the readout starts at 1 (infinite resistance) and it takes about a second to register the actual resistance once the probes are securely connected. Securely connected is important because the first time I tried the test I just touched the contact points briefly and thought I was getting infinite resistance (a 1 reading on a digital meter), but when properly connected this would drop to 0.8 ohms between all 3 yellow wires and earth.

so the reading should be infinite if there is no leakage to earth. if it isn't infinite whats the best bet. renew the wiring or the stator coils or both

Batteries are funny things ...sometimes ok for a while and then pack up with no warning.

I had the same symptoms/charge rate as you and a new battery cured the problem you will have been unlucky if you have an alternator problem on a sv ..its pretty rare.

Alternator failure may be rare but that's exactly what happened to mine. I've already replaced the battery and R/R thinking they were the problem. The starter relay tests OK, but the alternator definitely has a short to earth. It could be because I burn high wattage bulbs up front. As for replacing the stator coils, the new unit will come with the wiring attached to the coils so when you replace the coils you're also replacing the wiring. You just need to route them the same way the old ones came out and then attach the connector block on the end.

Right boys and girls get your head round this.

I have done the stator test as SVspeedr did and my results are infinite so there is no leakage to earth from the alternator. I have done the unregulated test (engine running, lights on 5000rpm and measure accross the three yellow wires) and my results were 87V across the three wires. So this indicated to me that the alternator is fine and the stator coils are fine. I then did the regulated test (engine running, lights on 5000rpm and measure accross the battery) and my results were 11.8v were they should be around 13.5v to 15.5v. What i noticed though is at 2000 rpm the measurement was 13.9v. Now this is indicating to me that the reg/rec is duff. Can anyone confirm this or agree with me.

Please comment as i need to know what the F### is going on with my bikes charging system.

Cheers in advance.

Andy