alternator output

[greasemonkey62]

Also the two seat fixing bolts about 3 inches forward of the top suspension bolts are a real pain to refit, I cannot reach the inside nut with fingers and I have large hands, I had to pack the nut in the ring spanner with cloth and hold it hopefully over the inside end of the hole while carefully turning the bolt, surely this is not right/standard fitting, any ideas??

[dave16mct]

It sounds like a dead short in the headlight wiring. You really must get yourself a mutimeter. They are cheap enough and this sort of problem is easy to sort out.

[Eric]

The Roy bacon Book assumes you are using 6 volt that's why he says 35 amp and its only to protect against a complete short circuit.

When using 12 volt as you are now the equivalent to the 35 amp fuse would be around 17 amp. So 20 amp at 12 volts should be more than enough, because it blows that suggests there is a short in the headlight wiring, so check everything to do with that including the dip switch wires and switch itself.

The 40/45w headlight bulb will pull about 3.3 to 3.75 amps, if the 23 watt side lights stays in circuit that will go up by a little under 2 amps so with the tail light and speedo bulb the whole lot should be no more than 6 amps.

If a 20 amp fuse blows there is a direct short somewhere.

Sorry forgot to include the ignition system so lets say no more than 8 amps.Edited by - Eric on 05 Oct 2010 10:58:10 AM

[greasemonkey62]

thanks for that, I will check the dipswitch asap, thanks to all much appreciated.

[legg]

quote:
Also the two seat fixing bolts about 3 inches forward of the top suspension bolts are a real pain to refit, I cannot reach the inside nut with fingers and I have large hands, I had to pack the nut in the ring spanner with cloth and hold it hopefully over the inside end of the hole while carefully turning the bolt, surely this is not right/standard fitting, any ideas??

I think they must have special committees dedicated to thinking up silly design details like this one- that's how they were designed. I made up an alternative arrangement - a 2mm? sheetmetal strip either side,with two holes to line up with the shocker bolt at one end, and with the seat mount bolt at the other. I then brazed a matching nut over the seat bolt end. The strips are attached to the shocker bolts with the nuts lining up with the seat mount bolts. The seat mount bolts screw into the captive nuts; Removing and replacing the seat is EASY. Got it? Good luck Edited by - legg on 06 Oct 2010 06:47:15 AM

[legg]

quote:
quote:
Also the two seat fixing bolts about 3 inches forward of the top suspension bolts are a real pain to refit, I cannot reach the inside nut with fingers and I have large hands, I had to pack the nut in the ring spanner with cloth and hold it hopefully over the inside end of the hole while carefully turning the bolt, surely this is not right/standard fitting, any ideas??

I think they must have special committees dedicated to thinking up silly design details like this one- that's how they (the seat fixing bolts) were designed. I made up an alternative arrangement - a 2mm? sheetmetal strip either side,with two holes to line up with the shocker bolt at one end, and with the seat mount bolt at the other. I then brazed a matching nut over the seat bolt end. The strips are attached to the shocker bolts with the nuts lining up with the seat mount bolts. The seat mount bolts screw into the captive nuts; Removing and replacing the seat is EASY. Got it? Good luck Edited by - legg on 06 Oct 2010 06:47:15 AM

[greasemonkey62]

Thanks to all for the info, cheers, I found the lighting short on the dipswitch feed cable, lighting ok now.
I think I have a duff alternator as I was advised to disconnect the alternator output cables and connect the green and black and the green and yellow cables to a circuit testers volt cable and the green and white cable to the cicuit testers com cable, when I started the bike up the reading was all over the place one second reading minus one the next second reading 64 or more, when I have the time I will take off the clutch cover and inspect, I expect to find the cable may have been chewed by the primary chain as it gave the inpression of charging then shorting etc etc.
Cheers All. Ray.

[bjork]

Ray, ref the volt meter readings. You did switch the meter to 'AC voltage' didn't you. It makes all the difference if not.......

Just thought, if you don't have an AC seting on your meter, it may be better to connect a headlamp bulb over the same connections. If ok, the bulb will glow when you kick the engine over and glow very brightly when you start it. If you rev it up it might even blow the bulb! Then you know you've got some output for sure Edited by - bjork on 06 Oct 2010 8:08:36 PM

[greasemonkey62]

yes but when I got the readings all over the place I tried dc as well as ac and got the same result.

[Eric]

As bjork suggests the quick test if a little expensive is just to connect any old 12v headlight bulb you may have and connect up over your measuring pair. If the alternator is working reasonably well it will blow the bulb at about 1500/2000 rpm or you could just work up to it.

The standard alternator on my G9 would blow every bulb in circuit on the bike when a fault in the dip switch used to create a dead short at about 55 mph, that blew the 30 amp fuse (6 volt system) that took the battery out of circuit and blew every bulb on the bike that was in circuit at the time.

So until I found the problem it became quite expensive in bulbs for awhile.

You see its that experience that now gets passed onto you so that we can say you have direct short in the headlight or dip switch wires or the switch, its all down to the learning curve.

So yes it maybe o good idea to check all of the wiring through, but don't always assume you have to replace this and that, I seem to remember that's how you came to change to the 12 volt system in the first place in the hope this would solve all evils but everything still has to correct everywhere else otherwise it still doesnt work.