regulator/rectifier

[JWright]

Hi guys I was hoping someone out there would be able to help me out. I just finished my 1977 XS360 project and have discovered that my battery is not charging.
I have gone through all the tests in the service manual and as far as I can tell I have a bad regulator and a bad rectifier.
I went ahead and picked up an aftermarket regulator/rectifier combo unit but it came without any instructions and I have no idea how to wire this thing up. Hopefully one of you wiring wizards out there can explain to me what needs to be done. I am including a picture of the new unit so you can see what I am dealing with.
According to the ohm meter readings I also have a bad alternator. I cant hardly believe that I would be unlucky enough to have every component of the charging system be bad. The manual says the alternator resistance readings sould be 0.76 and the readings I was getting were 1.8 ohms. Does anyone know if an alternator can be fixed or are there new aftermarket alternators avaliable?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[Drewcifer]

Hey JWright, we've been dealing with this issue a lot lately. I did a full write up on it, so has Drewpy in his "how to rewire" where he starts with his stator rewiring.

Your bike is the same as mine and has no alternator, per se, instead, the rotor spins and breaks the field of the stator, which is a stationary version of an alternator. Instead of a the wired segments in the alternator, and the brushes etc, we have a very simple system. The field coil is fed voltage and electromagnetizes.

the electromagnetic field is broken by movement, in this case, the rotor. That is all that is required to generate alternating current. If you look on youtube you'll see a few animations from the 50s explaining this.

So if voltage is going to your field coil (It probably is) you can hold a single edged razor blade to your stator cover. The magnetic field will make it dangle there if the engine is on.

the rotor interrupts that magnetic field, creating the AC, which leaves the STATOR on the three white wires and the yellow wire.

After all this time, most of our bikes have degraded, bent, or exposed wiring as the stator wires leave and join the wiring harness. Drewpy did, I did, so did a few other cats as soon as two weeks past. it's covered in my write up.

So first start the bike and see if a single edged razor blade is held there by magnetism. If not, find an insulated wire and attach the wire on one end to battery positive, and then the other end you'll use a piece of straight paper clip attached to the wire to reach inside the connector to the field coil, and touch it to the brass contact at the back where the wire feeds into the white connector. The green wire is the field coil voltage feed. If you can hold the razor blade there with the engine running after that, then your regulator might need to be replaced, because it means it wasn't getting direct voltage from your battery.

Start there and tell us what happens.

Best of luck
Drewcifer

PS, read Drewpy's write up and mine for more clarity.

 

[JWright]

Hey JWright, we've been dealing with this issue a lot lately. I did a full write up on it, so has Drewpy in his "how to rewire" where he starts with his stator rewiring.

Your bike is the same as mine and has no alternator, per se, instead, the rotor spins and breaks the field of the stator, which is a stationary version of an alternator. Instead of a the wired segments in the alternator, and the brushes etc, we have a very simple system. The field coil is fed voltage and electromagnetizes.

the electromagnetic field is broken by movement, in this case, the rotor. That is all that is required to generate alternating current. If you look on youtube you'll see a few animations from the 50s explaining this.

So if voltage is going to your field coil (It probably is) you can hold a single edged razor blade to your stator cover. The magnetic field will make it dangle there if the engine is on.

the rotor interrupts that magnetic field, creating the AC, which leaves the STATOR on the three white wires and the yellow wire.

After all this time, most of our bikes have degraded, bent, or exposed wiring as the stator wires leave and join the wiring harness. Drewpy did, I did, so did a few other cats as soon as two weeks past. it's covered in my write up.

So first start the bike and see if a single edged razor blade is held there by magnetism. If not, find an insulated wire and attach the wire on one end to battery positive, and then the other end you'll use a piece of straight paper clip attached to the wire to reach inside the connector to the field coil, and touch it to the brass contact at the back where the wire feeds into the white connector. The green wire is the field coil voltage feed. If you can hold the razor blade there with the engine running after that, then your regulator might need to be replaced, because it means it wasn't getting direct voltage from your battery.

Start there and tell us what happens.

Best of luck
Drewcifer

PS, read Drewpy's write up and mine for more clarity.

Ok Drewcifer, thanks so much, I will try this and let you know.
I found Drewpys write up in the tech section but havent been able to find yours. Can you provide me with the link?
Thanks again

Oh never mind Drewcifer I just found your write up!

 

[JWright]

Hey JWright, we've been dealing with this issue a lot lately. I did a full write up on it, so has Drewpy in his "how to rewire" where he starts with his stator rewiring.

Your bike is the same as mine and has no alternator, per se, instead, the rotor spins and breaks the field of the stator, which is a stationary version of an alternator. Instead of a the wired segments in the alternator, and the brushes etc, we have a very simple system. The field coil is fed voltage and electromagnetizes.

the electromagnetic field is broken by movement, in this case, the rotor. That is all that is required to generate alternating current. If you look on youtube you'll see a few animations from the 50s explaining this.

So if voltage is going to your field coil (It probably is) you can hold a single edged razor blade to your stator cover. The magnetic field will make it dangle there if the engine is on.

the rotor interrupts that magnetic field, creating the AC, which leaves the STATOR on the three white wires and the yellow wire.

After all this time, most of our bikes have degraded, bent, or exposed wiring as the stator wires leave and join the wiring harness. Drewpy did, I did, so did a few other cats as soon as two weeks past. it's covered in my write up.

So first start the bike and see if a single edged razor blade is held there by magnetism. If not, find an insulated wire and attach the wire on one end to battery positive, and then the other end you'll use a piece of straight paper clip attached to the wire to reach inside the connector to the field coil, and touch it to the brass contact at the back where the wire feeds into the white connector. The green wire is the field coil voltage feed. If you can hold the razor blade there with the engine running after that, then your regulator might need to be replaced, because it means it wasn't getting direct voltage from your battery.

Start there and tell us what happens.

Best of luck
Drewcifer

PS, read Drewpy's write up and mine for more clarity.

Ok Drewcifer,

I started the engine and used a feeler guage (didnt have a razorblade) to check for magnetism, nothing. I made a jumper from my positive batt terminal straight to the green wire feeding the Feild coil, still no magnetism.

So now I am assuming I should pull the generater cover and check for damaged wires or bad connections???

 

[Drewcifer]

Hey buddy,

Yeah, we gotta find out where the connection is broken and fix it or replace it. The coil is encased in liquid epoxy which dries and protects it, so unless it got hashed somehow ( we saw a damaged STATOR two weeks ago, amazing as that sounds!) it should be cool. More likely is a broken open wire that's leaking your voltage back to ground. Trace the wires from the positive terminal on your battery and touch your voltmeter to the wires after they leave the battery. One probe on your volt meter goes to your negative, then touch the positive to the battery. Make sure you're starting off with a known good battery, you won't regret replacing it if you can afford it. Leave the probe on negative and move the positive to the next link in the chain. etc. Then move to the next connection. You want to see roughly the same volts at each spot the positive voltage goes in the chain of circuits. Now if you have a bum voltage regulator, or a bent or open wire, your volts will dribble downward consistently as soon as you key the bike on. Our regulators are easy to replace. There's a cheap and reliable aftermarket we covered recently. Let me know if you need more guidance.

I don't mind the feeler gauge test, but the wrench hanging off a screwdriver might work better. I don't know HOW MUCH magnetism it takes to bend a feeler gauge. Never tried.

Don't stress too much, you just have to get to know the wiring. You can't really fuck it up testing stuff, so get to understand it and search for that voltage drop. It ends up bonding you with your bike, and it seals up your voltage leaks, very important for reliability.

Keep us posted in your thread, cool? Let me know any other way I can help.

Drewcifer

 

[JWright]

Turns out my stator and voltage regulator were bad! Just my luck!
Anyway, I picked up a stator on ebay and a R 292 Regulator from O'Rielly Auto and now everything is working fine.

Thanks for your help Drewcifer

 

[Drewcifer]

Congrats buddy! Great to see you're finally getting "VOLTS!"

How'd you figure out your stator was shot? I'm hearing more and more about shot stators but I figured they were too robust to get damaged. If you have the old one can you shoot some pics of the dead one and how it failed so others can learn?

Drewcifer

 

[JWright]

There is nothing really visably wrong with it. I just did the resistence test between the three white wires as per the service manual. The resistence between the three whites is supposed to be .72 ohms. The readings I was getting were much higher, cant remember what they were exactly. Anyway I just went with it and ordered the used ebay stator, tested it before I installed it and the readings were within the ranges stated in the service manual.

I talked with a bike mechanic and he said that stators rarely go bad and he was suprised that it was bad.

 

[Drewcifer]

Yeah, I'm shocked your stator went bad too because it's a row of magnets wound with wire. It never moves...so unless a bullet went through it or the wires connected to it broke there's no reason for it to fail.

While you got better readings off the new stator and it worked, it's best if possible to find what went wrong with your old stator. Failure has a cause and effect. The cause might recur, as in a melting stator wire due to a faulty regulator or bad wiring loom.

For now ride happy!

Drewcifer

 

[cesarcal]

Hey JWright, we've been dealing with this issue a lot lately. I did a full write up on it, so has Drewpy in his "how to rewire" where he starts with his stator rewiring.

Your bike is the same as mine and has no alternator, per se, instead, the rotor spins and breaks the field of the stator, which is a stationary version of an alternator. Instead of a the wired segments in the alternator, and the brushes etc, we have a very simple system. The field coil is fed voltage and electromagnetizes.

the electromagnetic field is broken by movement, in this case, the rotor. That is all that is required to generate alternating current. If you look on youtube you'll see a few animations from the 50s explaining this.

So if voltage is going to your field coil (It probably is) you can hold a single edged razor blade to your stator cover. The magnetic field will make it dangle there if the engine is on.

the rotor interrupts that magnetic field, creating the AC, which leaves the STATOR on the three white wires and the yellow wire.

After all this time, most of our bikes have degraded, bent, or exposed wiring as the stator wires leave and join the wiring harness. Drewpy did, I did, so did a few other cats as soon as two weeks past. it's covered in my write up.

So first start the bike and see if a single edged razor blade is held there by magnetism. If not, find an insulated wire and attach the wire on one end to battery positive, and then the other end you'll use a piece of straight paper clip attached to the wire to reach inside the connector to the field coil, and touch it to the brass contact at the back where the wire feeds into the white connector. The green wire is the field coil voltage feed. If you can hold the razor blade there with the engine running after that, then your regulator might need to be replaced, because it means it wasn't getting direct voltage from your battery.

Start there and tell us what happens.

Best of luck
Drewcifer

PS, read Drewpy's write up and mine for more clarity.

Dont mean to jack the thread but my brothers bike was having similar issues. I tried the jumper method and the blade sticks to the cover now. The question is does he have both a rectifier and a regulator or just one? I beleive the rectifier is the finned one under the battery and the regulator is the one right next to the battery correct? If this is true would it be wise to replace both or just the regulator.

 

[Drewcifer]

Hey Bro, it's not jacking to "same issue here" a thread. If you have magnetism at your stator you're halfway home.

The rectifier is easy to test, and yes, it's the finned guy under the battery. You can watch the link on youtube here.

watch the end around 12:00 minutes and skip the rest.

If you have a bike from 79 or earlier, follow my rewire write up on the stator rewire/regulator swap here:

http://www.xs400.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7616&highlight=regulator+swap

later than 80, you use the other aftermarket vr125 (it's got other names but every napa and oreilly carries it.)

Wish you volts! You'll be riding sooner than you think!

Drewcifer

 

[Ordo Ab Chao]

Turns out my stator and voltage regulator were bad! Just my luck!
Anyway, I picked up a stator on ebay and a R 292 Regulator from O'Rielly Auto and now everything is working fine.

Thanks for your help Drewcifer

***************
Can U show me a pic or two of the R292 regulator from O'Rielly Auto...I been trying to find a reasonable alternative regulator to replace my damaged one.

 

[Wolfe_11B]

No reason to bump a thread from 2012.... There's been probably about 300 threads on it since then.....