Stator failures, was Re: Fuel Filter?
kas750 said:
red baron ;ok i fused my three yelloew stator wires with 15 amp fuses .but after reading your quote from moki-man it sounds as though this may be a futile attempt to keep the stator from damage.is this charging system as fickle as reported by the vn 750 owners out there? i thought the lucas chaging system was problamatic in the brit bikes i've owned. the japanese are well known for excellent electronics. what's the excuse? ken in penfield ny
Ken
We don't know why the stators fail for sure. The bikes first made in the late 80's don't have anywhere near the rate of problem as the later models. We do know that kawa switched mfgs at one point and that seems to be related. Also weak batteries put more demand on the stator and charging system, and that tends to make them run hotter and shortens life. Other theories are dirty oil and low oil levels also contribute to the failures as well as regulators that have not been relocated and still sit over the goat belly and overheat as well stressing the system. In addition adding too many electrical accessories, poor grounds, corroded connectors all can overstresses the system, etc.. So, you see, we are long on theories and short on facts. The relocation of the regulator, the fusing of the leads, the replacing the battery with a gel battery and replacing that every two years are all proactive prevention measures, non of which we can conclusively prove helps. There is a general article on stator failures here, it is not vn750 specific that is at the bottom of this post I made a while ago.
Hope this answers some of your questions.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [VN750] stator questionDate: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:28:32 -0500From: Red Baron (Chris Eggleston) <
[email protected]>Reply-To:
[email protected]o:
[email protected], Dianna Hughey <
[email protected]>References: <
[email protected]>
(dianna, can you delete the earlier post? this post contains the link)
I see the other two replies assumed a bit of knowledge. You said newbie
- correct? So I'll try a brief summary about the stator issues.
- The stator is like the car alternator. It generates the power to charge the battery and run the bike.
- sometimes the stators die. Happens in all bikes. Ours is annoying when it does because it requires an engine pull to replace it.
- We don't know why the stators fail for sure, but so far seems to be heat related.
- The stators in the older bikes don't seem to fail as often. Theory is that Kawa changed vendors sometime around '90 or so.
- Things you can do to try to ward off a stator failure.
-- Keep your oil clean and always up to or above the top mark. Oil is what cools the stator. If oil is low not enough to cool stator, dirty oil retains more heat. My stator failed when my oil level was between the two lines. So did Joe's. Coincidence? I'm betting not. I now always keep my oil level filled above the top line so I can only see one tiny tiny air bubble, and I check it before every ride. If I'm on the road on
a multiple day trip, I check it each morning, and I have an small bottle of Oil I carry with me to keep it topped off. Paranoid? Yeah. Good for the bike? Yeah.
-- make sure you have a good battery. A weak battery puts extra strain on the charging system
-- check your electrical connections at least yearly and make sure there is no corrosion poor connectors cause heat, because of increased resistance, heat can cause fire, increased resistance puts more strain on charging system.
---- check your grounds, make sure they are clean and tight
---- check your stator leads - the three yellow wires and the
connectors, make sure they are clean
---- check your other electrical connectors and make sure they are clean
---- a light coat of dielectric grease when you put the connectors back together helps keep out the moisture and the corrosion away.
----- replace your wet cell battery with a gel battery when you can
afford it, and before you spend money on anything else for the bike. The wet cell battery can get low on water and become a weak point. Acid can spill and eat away at your battery box and electrical junction box
-- some times the RR (rectifier/voltage regulator) dies
Here is a good article on Stators and rectifiers and some of the typical
causes and problems.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JET_AV8R/Vision/Stator/Stator.html
Hope this helps