Topic: 550 Charging Problem Surprise

[brewsky]

During a short ride yesterday, the engine started missing and eventually just died. Not enough juice to re-start with electric starter, but after checking fuses (OK), it fired right up with kick start.

1/2 mile later, died again. Pulled the head and tail light fuses, waited a few minutes, and kicked it again........fired right up and made it the next 5 miles home with fingers crossed.

While doing the charging system checks, the stator leads were giving some whacky readings, varying from 100 -500 ohms at the connector.

Pulled the front sprocket cover and found this!......

[Vinhead1957]

Nice to find a smoking gun!

[bjbuchanan]

Sweet baby jesus that was beat

[dave500]

with a bit of luck the stator hasnt burned out from that short,you might be lucky enough to clean it up and make a resolder repair?

[brewsky]

Fingers still crossed...........a temp crimped-in patch resulted in 14+ volts when revved up, so hopefully the alt isn't fried.

The hot wire to the starter had a bare place right where it and the alt wires went thru the grommet.

The grommet is toast and I'll bet it's NLA.

Need to pull the alt cover and do a proper sub harness replacement.

I went back thru my original pics from after I brought it home and found these, which I had forgotten:

[dave500]

a petrified oil pump,looks like it was made about 3 million BC?

[bryanj]

Er let me guess----You are in a state where they use lots of rock salt on the roads in winter?

[percolate]

Shut the front door! Those are some funky pics. 

I didn't know you could use a fish for an oil pump.

Glad you made it home ok and hope you get it all sorted out without too much trouble.

[Bodi]

Sweet Mexican Mangoes! Them wires is toasted!
Not uncommon though, with the engine heat those bullets do get corroded and overheat. I've earned several cases of beer by magically fixing "unfixable" SOHC4 charging problems - just by cleaning or removing (by soldering the wires) those alternator wire bullets.

[brewsky]

Must admit, when I first pulled the cover off I thought it might be alive!

LAMO on the petrified comment!......but sure gives new meaning to the e-bay description for "patina"

The reason I didn't dig around the grommet area to begin with is there are no connectors there and I didn't want to disturb the often stiff crunchy insulation on old wiring.........my mistake!

I did clean all the connections though.

Yes, they use plenty of salt on the roads here, but I can't figure why only the oil pump was coated, and not the rest of the exposed metal.

[bryanj]

The reason the wires got that bad is a PO did not fit the grommet right and trapped the insulation, as to the oil pump it's first in line for all the crap