Charging system testing

[NCScooter]

I replaced the stator a couple weeks ago (From Rick's this time) but it seemed the battery was slooooowly losing it's charge. I plugged in my float charger and it took overnite (12h) to fully charge, which is longer than it used to.

I then checked the 3 yellow wires from the stator, got 0.6 ohm between any 2 and ~50 Vac between any two @ 3000 rpm. I then hooked my ammeter between the red wire from the regulator rectifier (early cbr oem replacement model) and the + terminal of the battery. I left the fat red wire hooked to the battery. After warming up as below, I got 10 amps @ 2500 rpm. Is this too high? The battery is a plain old style lead acid a little over a year old, the liquid is at the proper height, it was fully charged (less the electrons used to start the bike and light the lights, I disconnected the reg. with the bike running.) Vdc across the battery only reaches 13.5.

Honda Goldwing GL1000 1975 to 1979 Service Manual Page 18-6.png (146.63 KiB) Viewed 488 times

[Whiskerfish]

10 amps would be a concern to me. After 5 minute or more the battery should have regained most of what it expended to start the bike. Any idea how old your battery is? I would probably get it tested as a minimum and maybe just replace it.

[NCScooter]

The battery's a little over a year old. It occurs to me that by reading the way I did, I was reading the total draw of the bike. The current was coming from the reg, then going to the Battery and back out the fat red wire. Between me and the PO's, the wiring is, um, interesting. I'm almost embarrassed to do this, but I'll post a picture tomorrow.

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[adecood]

I too have been having a issue with the voltage running down as the miles accumulate. I normally keep this bike on a tender because I don't ride it as much as I would like to. I can get maybe 25 miles before I start to see the volts drop. than it doesn't take long before it gets down below 11 - 10 v
I have a question regarding the charging system on a 1200. If my bike is running at 2500 rpm and I disconnect the neg lead on the battery shouldn't the bike still keep running if the stator is good. I would think that it should keep running.

[pidjones]

Any older 'wing could do well to have ALL of the connectors cleaned/tightened. And some that are just crimped onto larger wires might have corrosion down inside the crimp.

[adecood]

Yes I agree with the cleaning process. And I have already completed that tedious work of cleaning all of the connectors.
After I send the last post I saw a post on how to check the stator from Steve Sauder after performing the test my stator is toast.

[Whiskerfish]

A real issue with 1200's unfortunately.

[adecood]

ya it's too bad. Iam probably going to build a poor boy kit to fix it.

[adecood]

I am now leaning towards replacing the stator instead of building a poor boy kit.
Does anyone have any experience with which stator supplier would be the best i.e Rick's, regulatorrectifier.com, Randakks.com, or hondapartsdirect.
And has anyone replaced there's by just pully off the rear drive train and dropping the rear of the engine instead of pulling the whole engine out of the bike?