[roadkingrich]

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I thought I'd read something about this. I was on ebay looking for a used one for my 85 Limited. A guy said he has one but that it had been hardwired and there are no plugs. Why would someone do this and should I stay away from this one and just buy a new one? Thoughts?

 

[Dutchman]

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The choice to buy it or not I'll leave up to you....

A lot of these older wings are having or had electrical problems especially being ~ 25 yrs old.

What happens is that the connections in the plugs for the stator and regulator become dirty/ corroded over time.

This dirt/corrosion increases the resistance, thus increases the current which results in the terminals heating up quite nicely.
This leads to burnt plugs which ultimately fail.

Since these connectors/plugs are not readily available, a lot of folks (including myself) have opted to hardwire (solder and heatshrink) the connections.

This eliminates any chance of dirt/corrosion. Downfall is that if the component (regulator or whatever) fails, you have to unsolder / cut the connections.

Look at your plugs/connectors...if they are so-so then cut them off and solder / heatshrink the connections. If they look good, clean them thoroughly and apply a good dose of die-electric grease to the terminals in the plugs.

This will help prevent corrosion.

Good luck!

 

[roadkingrich]

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How can I tell if the regulator is deffinetly bad? I charge it and it runs a few hours, but eventually draws the volts down till the bike dies. Reving the RPM's does not make the volts go up. It has a new battery.

 

[Ken Bergen]

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Have you tested the stator and checked the connections between it and the regulator?

 

[johnmac]

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I had an '85 Aspy that had some brown connections on both the regulator and rectifier, so I cut the connectors and soldered the joints.

John

 

[Bike...and Dennis]

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There is a place to get OEM regulators cheap. Someone here should know have the link. If it were me, I wouldn't buy used. As Ken says, you need to determine what's wrong before you start spending.

Do a forum search and you will find lots of info on how to test the charging system.

 

[roscoepc]

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roadkingrich wrote:

How can I tell if the regulator is deffinetly bad? I charge it and it runs a few hours, but eventually draws the volts down till the bike dies. Reving the RPM's does not make the volts go up. It has a new battery.

Chances are the regulator is bad as I've only heard of about 3-4 stators that have actually gone bad on a fuelie. I'd test the stator and if it test's good, I'd replace the regulator with a new OEM Shindengen:



http://www.regulatorrectifier.com/catalog/1985-Honda-GL1200-GL-1200LTD-Limited-Edition-Regulator-Rectifier



Don't use an off brand as they WON'T last!! The price on the link is a bit less than half of what Mother Honda want's for one!! Here's the test:





Stator Test

1- First, put the bike on the centerstand. Cut the wires on both sides of the stator connector plug. Strip the insulation aprox. 1/2"-1" back on all three yellow wires. Label each wire A, B, and C.

2- With a multimeter, digital or analog, set to read resistance, check each leg to ground for short's. If no short's are found, (o resistance), you're good to go so far.

3- With the meter set to read resistance, check across each leg. A to B, B to C, then C to A. The reading's should be about 3 ohm's. If you read infinite resistance across any of the legs you have an open winding and the stator is bad. If they read good, keep going.

4- A helper is good to have for this next step. With the battery fully charged and the three yellow wire's separated so they cannot make contact, crank the bike. Have your helper rev the bike to 3000rpm after the bike warm's up.

IMPORTANT!!!

You are checking for AC voltage NOT DC voltage!! Make sure the meter is set to read a minimum of 120vac!!

With the bike at 3000rpm, check leg A to B. Note the voltage.

Then check leg B to C. Note the voltage.

Finaly check leg C to A. Note the voltage.

Compare the three readings. They should be between 50-70vac plus or minus about 5vac per leg. If they read good, chances are you've got a bad regulator.





The reason for the soldered wires?? The spade connectors inside the plastic stator and regulator connectors will over time and exposure to heat will lose their clamping strength and cause a bad connection that will burn, causing charging problems and possible regulator/stator failure. The best solution I've seen is to cut BOTH, (the Ltd Ed has 3),connectors outand solder/hardwire/heatshrink insulate all the wires, preventing any furthur failures



Good luck with her and let us know what you find!!

 

[roadkingrich]

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Finally took the bike apart and found one of the yellow wires are burnt at the connector. Gonna cut and splice the one wire and see what happens.

 

[roadkingrich]

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Ok. Spliced that wire together and fired the bike up. Ran it for one maybe 2 minutes at the most and the other 2 yellow wires were pretty warm. The wire I spliced got pretty hot and the regulator itself was too hot. The dash still reads 11.2 volts. I haven't checked the stator yet. Any ideas so far?

 

[moonhead]

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You will need to hardwire all the connectors from your stator to your voltage regulator.Also check your dogbone fuse next to your battery.

 

[roadkingrich]

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Even with the other two wires looking good? Is that fuse the 50 amp fuse next to the battery?

 

[roadkingrich]

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As soon as I unplugged those wires next to the battery where the 30 amp fuse is, it jumped to 16 volts. The fuse looked good.

 

[Bike...and Dennis]

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As soon as you unplugged what wires? And what jumped to 16 volts?

Don't get sidetracked by the main fuse. Do the job at hand.

 

[roadkingrich]

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The volt meter in the dash. The wires next to the battery where the 30 amp fuse is house.
Just got done hard wiring the yellow wires on the regulator. Checked resistance from set a to b, b to c, then c to a. First two popped my meter and the third a and c drew the needle back a fuzz. That means my stator is bad?

 

[hunter27h]

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I have owned two LTD, still have one of them, when I got them, neither was charging, I finally replaced starter relay, got rid of the dog bone fuses, replaced the regulators, soldered connections for the regulator, and the stator. That was two +years ago, they both charge at 13.8-14+ today, and still adding miles. both starter relay and voltage regulator less than$150.00 First regulator came from dennis kirk, 2nd one from the supplier for Kirk, which was
Click here: Rick's Motorsport Electrics - Product Detail both items are now 160.00 plus shipping. I have found the starter relay on ebay cheaper for 1500 bikes.

Your stator may be bad, but those items worked for me.


Ben

 

[Bellboy40]

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roadkingrich, if you want to know if the stator is good you must test it as described in roscoepc's post #7. There are no shortcuts. You have to disconnect the wires from the stator by unplugging the connector or unsoldering the wires if you have already soldered them. Just have the wires with nothing else connected to them and measure as the post describes. Then you will know whether the stator is good and we can go from there.