A couple of weeks ago, riding home in the rain, the charge light started coming on, as did my battery monitor. It stopped after a while and all was well, but today I pulled the tank off to take some measurements and check the connections.
What I found was the little spade connector with the two blue wires was dodgy. I went to pull the connector off and the wires came away from it. Hmmm. might be a reason here.
I trimmed and stripped the ends then crimped a new connector and soldered for good measure, polished the spade tab with emery paper, fitted the connector, applied a good dollop of silicon grease and then the rubber boot, so that should be good for a while.
Then I took the big alternator wire off, which was in good condition, cleaned the connector, refitted it and covered with silicon grease, just for good measure.
Now, looking at the circuit diagram, the blue wires only go to the diagnostic plug and the charge light on the dash. So, if the connection was broken would the light come on or stay off. Basically, would the broken blue wires mean it's just showing a bad charge when it's actually ok, or have I found a problem separate from the original one.
Given that the separate battery monitor I have fitted gave the same warnings, I'm thinking that the battery wasn't getting charged, so was the blue wire fault the cause of this or do I need to be looking for something else.
Testing before I did anything but with the bike warmed up showed the battery at 12.9v with the bike off and 13.8 at idle.
Testing once it was all back together again gave the following readings.
idle with no lights on: 13.8v
dip beam on: at idle 13.5v, at 4000rpm 13.6v
dip beam + 2x35w fogs: at idle 12.6v, at 4000rpm 13.3v
dip beam + 2x35w fogs + main beam + 2x35w spots: at idle 11.7v, at 4000rpm 13.1v
Be grateful for your thoughts.
What I found was the little spade connector with the two blue wires was dodgy. I went to pull the connector off and the wires came away from it. Hmmm. might be a reason here.
I trimmed and stripped the ends then crimped a new connector and soldered for good measure, polished the spade tab with emery paper, fitted the connector, applied a good dollop of silicon grease and then the rubber boot, so that should be good for a while.
Then I took the big alternator wire off, which was in good condition, cleaned the connector, refitted it and covered with silicon grease, just for good measure.
Now, looking at the circuit diagram, the blue wires only go to the diagnostic plug and the charge light on the dash. So, if the connection was broken would the light come on or stay off. Basically, would the broken blue wires mean it's just showing a bad charge when it's actually ok, or have I found a problem separate from the original one.
Given that the separate battery monitor I have fitted gave the same warnings, I'm thinking that the battery wasn't getting charged, so was the blue wire fault the cause of this or do I need to be looking for something else.
Testing before I did anything but with the bike warmed up showed the battery at 12.9v with the bike off and 13.8 at idle.
Testing once it was all back together again gave the following readings.
idle with no lights on: 13.8v
dip beam on: at idle 13.5v, at 4000rpm 13.6v
dip beam + 2x35w fogs: at idle 12.6v, at 4000rpm 13.3v
dip beam + 2x35w fogs + main beam + 2x35w spots: at idle 11.7v, at 4000rpm 13.1v
Be grateful for your thoughts.