On my last track day at Putnam, my battery died and had to get a couple push starts to finish the last couple sessions. Once home, I had the battery checked and 3 out of 4 stores checked it bad. I got a new battery and had been checking it every several days. It seemed like all was okay. Today I decided to hang the lights back on it and go for a ride. Stopped after about 20 minutes for gas and it wouldn't restart. I got a push start and got it back home. I'm guessing it's not charging. A little searching suggests that the reg/rectifier is a common problem on these. Can anyone give me any testing suggestions/instructions for checking out the regulator? I'm reasonably well versed with a multimeter FWIW. I checked when I first put in the new battery, it was showing 14.5V when running and 12.7V with key off. I figured it was charging but obviously not! Thanks, Matt
Can be the rectifier but I've had a run of bad batteries! Look up the test on youtube Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I had the same issue... Turned out my stator bolt worked its way out and the flywheel was not moving... It's either your stator, battery, or rectifier...
Those are the correct voltages for a charging and at rest battery. You should test it under load without the bike running. Batteries can act fine until load is added to them. If the voltage drops significantly when adding load, the battery was bad from the start.
After posting last night, I got looking on EBay and picked up a new regulator/rectifier. It should be here early next week. I'll go through the troubleshooting PDF that Derick linked when I get home this afternoon and see if I wasted money on the new regulator. FWIW, the new battery I bought was an EBay cheapy. I guess it could be bad as well. Local shops were all in the $120 range for their batteries. I thought that was a bit high. Matt
Honda spec batteries are generally higher as they call for a higher CCA than a lot of others. Could very well be the battery especially being a cheapy. Seems there has been a lot of bad batteries produced lately. Buddy of mine runs a small shop and lots of the cruiser customers don't want to ante up for a Yuasa and typically lean towards the Parts Unlimited house brand and he has had decent luck with them but over a 2-month period earlier this summer he tracked it when it seemed he was having a lot of failures almost immediately. Out of 41 batteries ordered in, 9 of them were bad within 30 days.... He hasn't had that issue lately seems whatever was failing in the QC department at the source has been corrected.
The battery I bought was "Adventure Power" brand at less than $29 shipped. I guess I shouldn't expect much but I'm still thinking I have a charging issue. Matt
I had the same issue this year, I used this fault chart to troubleshoot. Check you plugs coming from the stator/rectifier to the battery, mine got charred at some point and half of it was black.
This may be more likely. I could see it being able to charge a small amount through bad connections, hence giving me acceptable voltage readings, but when I had a pair of 55 watt lamps on, it just couldn't handle that much current loss. Matt
I should have been more specific. I used this chart to troubleshoot my issue after facing symptoms such as yours. I took my fairings off and inspected the connections to see if I could find a short but instead I found a charred connector/plug. Used the flow chart to troubleshoot it and ended up having to replace both the RR/stator. I bought them from Electrosport(http://www.electrosport.com/street-bikes/honda/cbr600rr-03-06.html?pt=stators) and haven't had any problems since. There was also a gasket I ordered from Amazon for my bike so I didn't have to deal with HondaBond.
I ran through most of the troubleshooting flowchart today. I got some borderline readings on the initial steps. It called for 13.5V in first step but I was only getting 13.45V. Continuing on to the ohms check, first time I got .318 on all three poles. I thought that maybe my meter could have been off a little so it was possible they were really in tolerance. Next I checked the AC voltage of each pole. All three were only 20V give or take a couple theths of a volt. This was well below the spec of 50V. I went back and rechecked the ohms. Now they were all all checking as dead shorts. Not sure why the difference from earlier but I double checked it with another meter. Per the flowchart I have a dead stator. Given that I am thinking of running Grattan next weekend and figuring I may not be able to get a new stator soon enough, any harm in running it like this and putting it on the charger after each session? I also noticed the RR was rather hot. Do they normally run hot? It was about as much as I was willing to hold on to for any length of time. Matt
I'm chasing a similar issue in my speed triple. From what i've read, the r/r usually runs hot. Everyone (that's good with motorcycle electronics) has recommended I use an 07+ r1 or a compufire regulator.
I've done a lot of wrenching over the years but not so much on bikes. With this charging issue I have been working on, I think I tracked it down to the stator. Through pics and knowing what is involved, I expected the stator portion of the engine to be dry. Mine had 5-6oz oil come out when I popped the cover off. Is there supposed to be oil in there??? Thanks, Matt
Yes there is supposed to be oil in there. I replied with some more instruction but my post hasn't been approved(yet?). They do recommend you replace the RR and stator together. I did the stator swap as a part of an oil change. Make sure you have some sort of gasket on the cover when you're sealing everything up.
I just changed both the stator and RR. Still not charging properly. I'm guessing I have some bad connections I'm gonna have to search out. It is showing about .25V when you check from battery positive to RR output. The chart says I have a poor connection in the positive wiring between battery and RR. Thanks for the info on the oil. I coated the stator cover with UltraCopper sealant. Matt
hmm... I haven't looked at the chart in some time but see if the pins within the plastic connectors seem to be intact. You can use the multimeter and search for infinite resistance between components(the chart might instruct you on how to do this).
