Took a great ride on a lovely day east towards the Cascades last Friday. Bike was running perfect the whole day, with plenty of stops along the way. Got home and asked the wife to move her car so I could get it in the driveway. Suddenly the motor is cranking over VERY slowly after sitting for only about 5 mins.
Got the bike in the garage and went on my way. Well I went to start it yesterday and the battery was only sitting at 11.x volts. That's kinda suspicious. Hooked up the battery tender and let it go overnight.
This morning, the battery was fully charged so I started up and checked the charge. It wasn't charging well at all, and the battery is new enough that I knew it wasn't the likely culprit. I replaced the rotor a while ago with a new unit from Rick's, and the stator's tests came out with great numbers.
I unhooked the rotor and started checking resistance across all of the different wires according to my FSM. Green to yellows, red/white to yellows, etc. Everything that's supposed to be in the kilo-ohms range was in the mega-ohms range, and half of the connections were completely open. Nothing was looking right at all. It lasted 40 years, so I wondered what made it give up the ghost.
Pulled the stator/rotor cover and checked connectivity of the rotor. Nothing between the slip rings at all. #$%*. My rotor that I bought in 2021 was dead, and probably took the R/R with it. What a bummer. I tested my old rotor and thew it back in (don't judge me for prematurely replacing a part well known to fail).
What I'm SUPER glad about is that it let me get home and I figured it all out in the comfort of my garage instead of on the side of the road.
Ordered a new R/R from Rick's, and I'm going to call them in the morning to see if they'll give me a few $ for the wasted core.
I've also got a new AGM battery on the way so I don't have to fiddle with conventional lead-acid anymore. Fingers crossed that the new R/R will do the job for another 40 years!
