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johnc
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 01:02 pm | 1st Post |
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Hello Everyone,
I know this subject has been done to death. However, I've decided to start this post by way of a big thank you to Steve Saunders and all the members who make this site such a great source of technical information, not to mention an interesting read!
When we recently bought a GL1200 Aspencade we did not know about the common charging circuit problem experienced by so many owners. Thanks to this forum I was able to read (and read, and read...) until I got the picture clear in my head about the likely cause and cure for our electrical woes.
We live in Australia and purchased our wing, sight unseen, after several phone calls to the previous owners. They lived 900 kms away and we made the decision to take a bus trip and ride the bike home.
Our problems began on the first day when the battery lost charge within a short period of time after picking up the bike. At the first fuel stop our battery was flat and I push started it just to get going again. During the course of the ride home just enough charge made it into the battery to allow us to get started after each fuel stop. After we arrived home the battery gave up and we didn't get another start until we got a new battery.
Roadworthy and registration was the next detail. This led to having to strip the machine down far enough to change the valve stem seals to try to stop the smoke on cold start up. This was attended to and the bike was registered in my name.
By now it was obvious that the circuit was not charging the battery as even the new battery was going dead. I took it out after dark one evening and soon found that the headlight would brighten up at first after take off then suddenly go dull. At each gear change the light would again go bright, but as soon as the revs picked up, dull !!
I'll stop now and post this, then continue, otherwise this could go on for a long time!
John
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johnc
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 01:16 pm | 2nd Post |
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So, to continue.
Next I fitted a voltmeter to the spare fuse on the standard fuse panel. This is a standard car type 2" analogue voltmeter mounted in a pod and secured to the handlebar with the mounting bracket from a bicycle reflector. Sounds crude, I know, but it looks really neat and works very well 
With the voltmeter I was able to verify what the headlight had been trying to tell me. The circuit was charging the battery up to about 1600 ~ 1800 rpm after which it just simply dropped off completely to 11 volts 
This is when I resorted to much reading on these forums. And in my Clymer manual, especially the wiring diagrams.
To this day I'm still not 100% sure why the voltage would rise up to a certain rev range then suddenly drop off  , but I sure found the problem when I began to delve into the wiring on the bike.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has had similar problems with their GL1200's to hear that I found melted connectors and blackened terminals.
In the next installment I'll outline the re-wiring I undertook for anyone who is facing up to the same thing.
John
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johnc
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 02:08 pm | 3rd Post |
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For anyone who's still with me, here's what I did to fix this.
From my exploratory search through the charging loom I found that the three yellow alternator wires passed through four (4) pairs of connectors before they arrived at the rectifier. Separating these connectors revealed melted plastic and blackened terminals. It appeared that I had exposed the culprit. However, after doing my research, I decided to "do the job properly".
What followed next was an intensive weekend of carefully fitting a new section of wiring loom. First I checked out the strange looking shrink wrapped device which was fitted into the circuit in between two partially melted connectors. It turned out to be a pair of capacitors, both blown out. I decided that since they were blown anyway, they couldn't be doing too much, so removed them first.
Next step was to try to identify a component next to the rectifier/regulator and wired between that and the alternator. I suspected that it was a radio noise suppressor and this was verified via a post to this site. (Thanks again to those who replied to my questions). Again I decided that I didn't care too much about radio noise when my main concern was solving a basic reliability issue. So, the radio noise suppressor followed the blown capacitors into the bin 
After having performed the yellow stator wire checks and confirming that the stator was fine, I next pulled out the side cutters and cut the remaining plug pair (beside the battery) out of the loom, one wire at a time.
Finally I hard wired the yellow wires directly to the rectifier.
Then I cut away the remaining wires at the connector pair at the regulator. The two red/white wires were then connected together and joined to a new 6mm wire directly to the battery positive post. This ensured that the AC current from the alternator was taking the path of least resistance to the rectifier. And the DC current from the regulator is now taking the path of least resistance to the battery. This left the two dark green wires and the black/green wire to deal with. I joined the two dark green wires together and into two new extensions, kind of like a four way thing. I ran one of the new wires directly to the battery negative post and the other to the chassis of the bike. This established a firm connection from the regulator output to the battery, and provided a fresh connection between the battery negative and the chassis (covering both bases, possibly redundant but for the sake of one wire, what the heck!). Finally, to complete the repair work, I hardwired the black/green wire to the pair of black/green wires on the other side of the standard plug re-establishing the connection with the original wiring loom.
The next step was to attend to the area around the solenoid. This was a little messy, and had been attacked previously. I cut away the corruption and soldered in new wiring from the solenoid positive live post into the wiring loom bypassing the fuse and re-joining the standard red and red/white wires via a new 30A fuse in an inline fuse holder.
This solved the charging problems previously mentioned, and a test ride confirmed that the battery now quickly reaches around 14.5 volts (or so) and maintains that rate of charge at anything much over an idle.
I have yet to go for a long ride as I had other things I wanted to tidy up while I was at it. I'll be finished soon and am looking forward to enjoying this bike.
In the next installment, I'll outline the last wiring changes I've made, and will post a wiring diagram (of sorts, I'm no auto sparks and my diagram is a bit primitive, but if it helps just one other person it was worth it).
John
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johnc
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 02:36 pm | 4th Post |
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And finally...
The last step was mainly to avoid future problems and to try to anticipate our touring needs.
This involved running a new live wire from the starter solenoid live feed through a 30A inline fuse to a 100A solid state relay which I mounted next to the battery. The other side of this was run to a new 6 fuse panel mounted under the false tank where the original radio noise suppressor had been removed. The switched power for this relay was taken from the accessory fuse on the original fuse box to provide power to the relay (and thus to the new fuse panel) only when the ignition is switched on.
The voltmeter was then wired to the new fuse panel via a 5A fuse.
I took the decision to run a new wire pair from the new fuse panel to the live side of the coils (black/white wires) through a 20A fuse. The Honda loom wires were simply unplugged and will be covered up with heat shrink and tucked out of harms way. (If my new loom proves to be unreliable I can choose to either plug the standard wires back in or investigate my own wiring loom, but I doubt if the new loom will give trouble, it's so simple, and simple is usually more reliable in my experience).
Two of the remaining fuse positions are earmarked for a new trailer wiring loom. This I purchased locally from a car trailer accessory shop. It is designed to use the signals from the standard brake/lights/indicators circuit and power the trailer lights via those signals directly from the battery. The second fuse is to power a spare wire in the trailer loom for an accessory plug inside the trailer for charging camera batteries etc. while away on tour.
I chose to do this to remove any potential overload from the Honda circuit (trying to keep it simple). I haven't fitted this part yet, that's the next job on the list (this weekend). Then I can button it all up and go for a ride at last 
I'll leave you now. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope this has been of help.
Regards and best wishes,
John
Attachment: 1986 GL1200 Aspencade - Wiring Modifications.pdf (Downloaded 52 times)
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FIRE UP
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 03:24 pm | 5th Post |
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johnc,
Pretty outstanding posts. Very intricate detail. We too just purchased an '84 Aspencade with 35K on it. Everything works well. My yellow trio of wires from the stator were fine and had even had an original type plug re-installed. You could see the solder/heat shrink sections where the joints were done. I eliminated the plug like everyone on this net suggested and soldered everything direct. I had good charging before and have good charging now. The bike runs fine with a small exception of some slight hesitation on cold application. Once it's warmed up to operating temperature, it's pretty well perfect. It seems to have just a little hard starting when it's warm though. I've read here that, that could be caused by starter age. I really don't want to attack that but I figure some day I might have too. Anyway, great post and very informative. Nice job.
Scott
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Scott & Karla
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redneck
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 06:08 pm | 6th Post |
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well done john, you have been busy, hope you manage to get out and ride it.
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irlp node # 5386....MB7IAG
GØSVH........... call me sometime
1986 GL1200 INTERSTATE (adopted )....1986 GL1200 ASPENCADE
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morram
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 08:40 pm | 7th Post |
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| Are you sure you're in Australia? You never once mentioned a crocodile or dingo getting a hold of your Goldwing!
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wingnut
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Posted: Thu Jul 10th, 2008 10:52 pm | 8th Post |
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| Hi John, that's a great thread. I'll move this to the reference forum as it will be very useful to many members.
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Steve Saunders,
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William_86
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Posted: Fri Jul 11th, 2008 12:01 am | 9th Post |
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| thanks for such great information mate and congratiulatinons on your new wing.. welcome to the family
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85' GL 1200 Interstate - My Picture Thread
Useful links: Manuals, Randakk's
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Big E
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Posted: Fri Jul 11th, 2008 12:17 am | 10th Post |
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| Good job John, keep use updated on how things are going for you and enjoy the ride.
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"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right"
Henry Ford
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johnc
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Posted: Mon Jul 21st, 2008 01:41 pm | 11th Post |
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Hi there everyone,
I nearly forgot to add the most important part to this tale. The test ride!
It's winter down here and getting a reasonable day to try things has been a waiting game. We took the bike for a 130 km test and I'm happy to report that the charging system was charging like a champ (14.5V steady [approx] at road speed).
By the way, I fitted the trailer wiring loom and that works fine too. All's well that ends well...
All the best,
John C
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johnc
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Posted: Fri Nov 7th, 2008 03:06 pm | 12th Post |
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Hi Everyone,
As a follow up to this story, we recently took this Goldwing on a tour to Central Australia from Victoria. We covered 6500 kms two-up and towing a trailer with camping gear.
The electrical system remains trouble free and we got a good start at all times. I can honestly say that this is the best bike I've ridden (so far...) and it did everything asked of it. In fact considering it's 22 years old and taking into account the remote area we traveled into, it did an amazing job!
Our only niggling problems for the trip were the need to remove a spacer from the front fork springs (a corrugated road surface and tight front end was making my vision blur which caused a headache, solved by "softening" the new progressive springs a little), and some warm to hot coolant temps during the hot part of the day when towing. This was controlled by wandering along at steady speeds. Next time we won't be taking so much gear, no camping, just cabins or motels  .
I almost forgot, the speedo drive gearbox stripped a gear about 1000 kms from home, but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess.
The trip itself was fantastic. The scenery was breathtaking at times, wide, vast and open, and with almost no sign of civilization for much of the outback section of the trip we were left in awe at the sheer size of it all. Our native wildlife was spectacular, especially the magnificent Wedge Tailed Eagle which was present in plentiful numbers along the main road. The cameras got a good workout, and we arrived home feeling that we had completed a "trip of a lifetime". On our Goldwing! Fantastic!!
So to anyone struggling with your wiring issues, keep at it . The reward is more than worth the effort.
All the best, and safe riding.
John
Last edited on Thu Dec 18th, 2008 10:29 am by johnc
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wda-83wing
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Posted: Fri Nov 7th, 2008 03:26 pm | 13th Post |
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| thanks for the fallow up .sounds like you`ve got it whipped. now to enjoy it , when you can----
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1979 gl1000 dressed --back to naked
1980 gl1100 interstate --side lined
1983 gl1100 interstate the fastest color--RED
retiered trucker---going to see it again ----on 2 wheels---love it--love it--- love it
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anto
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Posted: Sun Dec 7th, 2008 11:44 pm | 14th Post |
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| Good Work Will Done John
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Old Hawkeye
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Posted: Mon Dec 8th, 2008 12:38 am | 15th Post |
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Hi John, nice to see that you got everything done right. Yes you were saying that it's winter there, but it's winter here too, now at -19 C. I can't go riding for a few months now. I was going to suggest that if you are running the original lights on the bike, you might want to look into the LED lights as they only take 33% draw compared to the old ones. Also I hope you checked the spline gear on your rear wheel too. So keep the rubber down and the shiney side up and enjoy safely. 
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Old Hawkeye.
85 Aspy since New
GWRRA Chpt."Y"ON
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