Think I found my first gremlin (random lights)

Originally Posted by Baph

Yup, I remember well mate, Pen-y-pass in dusk with no lights isn't the brightest of ideas (pun intended ).

Did you find out if yours was under/over charging, or just replace it?

I've got to sort the car out tonight, but hopefully will get chance to look at the bike this aft as well. Headstock connector & water ingress top priority, then reg/rec, then loom rubbing/dodgy ground I reckon.

When revving it was going to something stupid over what it should, I can't remember figures and terms TBH lol. It was 17volts I think (is that right?) when revving at 3500.

[yorkie_chris]

17 volts is pretty far from right, should be 14.5v!

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

17 volts is pretty far from right, should be 14.5v!

Thats what I meant, it was bad.

I realised something this morning about it actually.

The solid lights is exactly the same as you get with the ECU 'pre-flight' checks. When you first turn the ignition on, these lights come on solid for a few seconds.

So maybe the ECU has reason to think the ignition's being turned off/on, when it actually hasn't.

To update this thread, I've had the battery off the bike for a while (a couple of days).

When I plugged the battery in, after checking all connections I could see, I turned the ignition on.

I was greeted with a backlit LCD, and nothing on it, the neutral light was on, but not the oil light (as it should of been, since the engine wasn't on). The rev counter also thought the bike was doing 7k RPM without me hitting the starter. Great!

So my first thought was fubar'd clocks. Expensive, and would reset the mileage of the bike. Gutted.

A little poke with a DMM... with the engine off, the battery was at 11v, a little low, but not that unsuprising considering it's been sat in my shed for a few days.

So I tried to start the engine to give the battery a wee charge. Fine, all good.

Then the lights started to fliker randomly, that's odd, what's worse, is that the rev needle is moving left/right - not overly, but definitely noticable (maybe 500 RPM either side of "centre"). That means the clocks are getting power OK, but that power is all over the shop.

DMM on the battery again, 0.4V, 9V, 12V, 4V, 15V... ah, I see now.

Unplug the reg/rec, DMM on battery and a constant 12V.

Conclusion, Reg/rec is fubar'd. They're cheaper than clocks. Hur-ray! EDIT: I just picked up a reg/rec on ebay for £23.95 inc P&P.

Alternator output has been checked as well, and that's spot on the money. It looks like with all my gadgetry on & off the bike over the last 2 years, I've cooked the reg/rec.

[yorkie_chris]

Or it's just gone for the sake of it #shrug#

I fitted a CBR reg-rec. You can tell they are higher spec than the SV unit, the wires going in have about twice the cross section.

Originally Posted by plowsie

Same happened to me when I bought Brian off Billy. Turned out to be the Reg/Rec.

Plowsie wins 10 points.

I changed the reg/rec over today, and first time I turned the ignition on, there were a few repeats of the same issue. But I fired it up & went for a run (maybe 150 miles or so) and haven't had anything wrong at all.

Yeeeeeeeah!

Well, my problems are back. The new reg/rec fixed it for a short while.

One test I didn't do last time was to see if the stator coils have burnt out (continuity to ground should tell me that without taking the casing off). So I'll do this when possible.

It seems that if I go for a long run, I don't have the issue. I guess it could just be a duff battery, as I've only really been doing shorter runs recently (other than yesterday where I racked up maybe 100miles - no issues yesterday other than the first few mins of the ride - massive issues with it today - I don't think the LCD worked for more than 30secs on my way to work).

When the LCD doesn't function correctly, it is back-lit, which tells me it's getting power at least. It could be duff clocks, but that doesn't really explain the long/short run variance.

The bike must have electrical power though, otherwise I'd have no fuel injection etc (I've had that issue before when the reg/rec hasn't been plugged in).

Anyone care to share any ideas?

[steveg]

From experience bikes know when you are thinking of changing them and start playing funny buggers ...

My vectra has clocks that do similar , works some times and I recon the clocks are faulty (just living with it at the moment ).

Hope you get it sorted .

Cheers Steveg