Battery not charging

[cross]

Hi guys,
I went for a ride this last week and after lunch break, we took off and about 5 miles or so, i stopped on the side of the road to wait for slower riding friend and turned off my engine. When i attempted to start it, battery appear not to have enough juice to start it so i had to bump start it and ride home. Voltage while riding was not moving much past 12V, usually its between 13 and 14. When i removed the head and taillight fuses, it was showing between 13 and 14 and for some reason bike was idling between 1500 and 2000.
I charged the battery and took it to local bike shop for test and it tested good, it is less then 1 year old but i still wanted to have it checked.
I read Mike Nixon's troubleshooting guide and i'm a bit confused with the testing that he described.
1st test was to take main fuse out and connect multimeter to each terminal, start the bike and rev it to 5000 rpm's and observe amps. Well, when fuse is out, bike gets no contact when ignition is turned on and therefore cannot be started. Did i miss something? I did jump those two terminals with jumper wire, started the bike, then disconnected it and connected multimeter terminals and got no reading what so ever. Did i do this correct?
2nd i did was his "step one" testing resistance between slip rings on the alternator and i got 4.1 ohms which is good.
3rd test was to bypass regulator with paper clip and connecting it to negative batt terminal, start the bike, rev it to 2000 rpm's and measure amps, i got ~ amps which is not good i think.
In this test, he didn't mention to reconnect back the main fuse and also where to take the reading but i took the reading on the battery terminals.
4th test i did was the magnet test with feeler gauge and result was positive.
I don't have the load resistor to do any further tests, am i doing this correct so far?
Checking voltage across the battery terminals while engine idling and revving it above 2500 rpm's only results to 12.7 volts which is low i think but i know that these bikes charging at idle is very low.

Any input appreciated


Should there be oil inside of the alternator where slip clutches are?

[NobleHops]

Sasha,

Pretty much everything shown in your photos needs attention. Those brushes are about shot and need to be replaced, the seal to the dry side has evidently failed, and it needs to be cleaned out. On the "wet" side, those two clutch plates are showing a lot of wear - if they are slipping that much it likely means your spring is sacked and must be shimmed. Those clutch plates also should be lapped as one was manufactured wrong and is not flat.

This is all well trod ground, thee are a few excellent threads on the entire alternator rebuild here - do a search and you'll find them. The good news is that it does not seem like you have any shorts, so you should be able to get it tip-top with a bit of effort.

[NobleHops]

Ross posted a great thread on this a while back:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6781&p=50865

[EMS]

Make sure you also check the connector from the alternator to the regulator for corrosion. Corroded terminals cause the resistance go too high and prevent proper charging.

[daves79x]

All good points brought up. Please do inspect the alternator plug very closely for signs of overheating. Must not be much or you'd have had to cut it apart. Is the outside brush to the scribe line, as Nils speculates? Overall might be as simple as that, but the alternator does need servicing. Seems you've done about everything needed to the bike EXCEPT the part most prone to wear! Both bearings and seal are available locally, but get a new shaft o-ring from Honda. Check the square o-ring and you'll need a gasket also - NLA from Honda, but TIMS has them. Get OEM brushes from Honda - many aftermarket ones are soft and wear quickly.

The clutch spring should measure about 30mm. If so, shim it with another washer anyway, as Nils said. If the spring is sacked much more than that you need a new one, again NLA from Honda, but Louis has them. Clutches look OK, but could use the 'treatment'.

All easy, straightforward stuff and once you have the parts, you should be good to go.

Dave

[daves79x]

Noticed another thing - the late models' comutator wears a groove where the brushes ride - the early ones do not. Might be a correlation between moderate brush wear on the late models (have seen brushes go 50,000 miles on the Pro-Links ) and very rapid wear on the early bikes (have seen them shot at 7500 miles). Possibly Honda changed the composition of the comutator copper?

Dave

[NobleHops]

Noticed another thing - the late models' comutator wears a groove where the brushes ride - the early ones do not. Might be a correlation between moderate brush wear on the late models (have seen brushes go 50,000 miles on the Pro-Links ) and very rapid wear on the early bikes (have seen them shot at 7500 miles). Possibly Honda changed the composition of the comutator copper?

Dave

INTERESTING!!! I noticed the groove too.

Dave, what's your take on skimming that plate with the slip rings On a mill till it's flat? I've seen other guys do this, a little curious how much material there is to work with on that.

[daves79x]

Probably not, unless you notice a lot of 'skip' marks on the rings - meaning they are not flat. I usually just shine the rings up with Scotchbrite.

Dave

[cross]

The electrical connector/plug is good, no signs of corrosion at all. It almost looks brand new.
Brushes have about 5mm above the scribed line. Bearing on the cover seems good, its quiet and spins freely.
The clutch spring was difficult to measure for me as my measuring caliper is not long enough so measures were done at the edges as far in my caliper would go, 29.56-30.xx
It does have some type of soft shim plus one metal shim.
Checking for flatness of the disks, one of them has very slight gap toward the center and i'll take care of that.
I'm not sure about the commutator, maybe someone had replaced it at one point but this one does have grooving as you guys noticed.

I have no problem getting all the parts and making things right only i was trying to test all electrical components first to make sure nothing died otherwise i think that it may make financial sense to go with the alternator upgrade.
Can stator be tested without load resistor?

Thanks
Sasha

[daves79x]

Brushes should be still good. The comutator is normal - don't worry about that. Dress up the clutches if you want and add a shim. If the bearings seem smooth, you can just replace the seal in the center - that's what is causing oil to be in the dry side.

Your rotor measures good, so if the bike isn't charging, then it's the stator (not common to go bad) or the regulator. Stator can be checked, regulator is hard to verify - except to plug a known good one in and try it. Clean it all up and reassemble. Make sure your battery terminals are tight and check the ground connection at the starter mount bolt. Then test your charging right at the battery. Should measure 13.5 or a bit better above idle with a fully charged battery. If it doesn't, then it's the stator or regulator. Caution here is not to ride the bike until it's sorted as a bad charging component can take out all the other expensive components if run that way.

Dave

[cross]

There is actually no oil in the dry side, when i asked i referred to wet side but i guess that is normal.
Can stator be checked accurately without using the load resistor?
What else can be taken out if ridden? I did ride it home after it stopped charging, maybe 30 miles or so. Once i pulled the fuses it was showing around 14 volts though while riding it home.

Thanks

[daves79x]

Yes, the wet side is supposed to be wet. Oil feeds out between the clutches through the little hole in the end of the primary shaft. I would clean everything up and see what you have. Getting 14 volts with the fuses pulled shouldn't happen if the alternator is not charging. Are you sure you don't have a loose battery or ground connection? You need to figure out exactly what is going on with known good connections. You can check the stator by checking the leads with an Ohm meter. Each yellow wire should have continuity with each other but none to ground.

Riding the bike with a bad charging component can take out the regulator/rectifier and overheat connections.

Dave

[EMS]

Noticed another thing - the late models' comutator wears a groove where the brushes ride - the early ones do not. Might be a correlation between moderate brush wear on the late models (have seen brushes go 50,000 miles on the Pro-Links ) and very rapid wear on the early bikes (have seen them shot at 7500 miles). Possibly Honda changed the composition of the comutator copper?

Dave

The rotor for the late model has the same part-number as for the early ones. It never changed. The brushes did, however.

[cross]

Dave,
The first thing that i checked was the battery terminals as i thought that they might have gotten loose but they were good. Today i'll check ground and rest of the things.
I'm hoping that i didn't burn the regulator/rectifier when i rode it home.
Now about the stator testing, should engine be running when i do those tests?
I checked partzilla.com for brushes but it seems that they have 3 different part numbers for A and B, do you know which one i should be getting?
http://www.partzilla.com/parts/search/H ... parts.html

Thanks
Sasha

[EMS]

The different brushes are physically interchangeable. I would get the ones with the -MA2- product code, which are the ones intended for your bike.