hondaman, - are those the painted fork ears that you are talking about? I have a set of rusty ones from a junk front end I bought and I just got a left one from e-bay that is usable. Im not sure the junk ones I have can be saved. If you have the painted fork ears that can be used I would love to take them off your hands! Also would the headlight and left control not being hooked up cause the charging voltage to be abnormally high? I have gone and installed a dohc rectifier/regulator combo and tried to replace all the connectors with the gold plated ones from Z1, but on my new charged battery the other day I was checking the voltage on the battery and noticed about 12.6 with the bike off. with the bike on about 3k rpm it showed about 17 volts! I checked last night and got 12.4 with the bike off and then checked between the green and black on the regulator and got about 11.8 volts there. that doesnt seem like alot of drop to me? I dont want to fry my new battery, is there anything else I can check? Or maybe I need to install the rest of my electrics and then worry about it?
This sounds a lot like a bad ground.
Look under the seat: there should be a small green wire with a ring terminal attached to the seat lock bracket. This is the main "system ground", and if it gets dirty/corroded, the whole system's voltage will seem to read wrong. Clean it up and reinstall with a drop of oil or bit of light grease on it.
Then, look at the condition of the big ground cable that goes from the battery to the left side of the engine, at the engone mount bolt. Make sure the bolt and ring connector are in excellent, clean condition, then treat as above to reassemble.
Finally, check the condition of the white, 6-circuit plug that goes down into the left rear of the engine: this is the alternator connection. Often, the contacts are in poor condition, causing loss of phase reference for one or more circuit returns. These can be slipped out the back of the connector, using a tiny screwdriver to bend in their tiny lock tabs, then clean, lightly oil, rebend the tiny tab out a bit, and snap back in. One at a time, please, so they don't get mixed up! If they are burned, file lightly with a jeweler's file until they shine, then grease instead of oil on reassembly, to keep the air out. Silicone grease works, too.
Finally, remove the cover from the voltage regulator. Make sure the little contact arm is free to move up and down. These can corrode into the HIGH position, making for high battery voltage and a dried-out battery. Make sure the contacts (they look like points) are clean and shiny, too. DON'T oil the contacts, except with LPS-1 (or nothing else). If it's all corroded up in there, get another one. The voltage across the battery at 3k RPM should max out at 15.8 volts with the lights off, 13.4 volts minimum. If measuring from battery + to ground is more than from battery + to -, then ground cables and connections are the culprit.
These are very simple charger systems: don't let it outfox you! The "regulator" is supposed to "rest" at HIGH CHARGE, only pulling the little contact down for overvoltage. When pulled down, it reduces the alternator output. So, when the voltage goes above 15 volts or so, the little coil pulls in to reduce the alternator's power. Increasing the spring tension in the "regulator" makes it stay "resting" until a higher voltage overpowers the spring, so the voltage in the system rises a little more before the coil can pull in. That's all it does!
My extra fork ears are gone: I must have given them away already. Sorry!
