| Author | Message | ||
     Adrenaline0210 |
Had my battery fail on me so I went ahead and replaced with a new one. Then not 2 days later it failed on me again. Checked all of my grounding wires and what not all seemed ok. Checked my stator and it seemed ok however inside the connector there was oil coming from the wires. Local HD stealership stated it was in fact the stator. Went and swapped out my stator and with a full battery charge a day later back to starter clicking and dim lights... where do I start now? | ||
| Froggy |
This is for your 03 XB9 correct? Voltage regulator. It may just be the "77" connector, which can have a bad connection, then arc, and end up melting the connector. All the new stators come with a revised connector, so I am not sure if thats the case here. | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
Yes this is for my 03 xb9s. s-r same difference really. Thats what I was thinking now is that its my voltage regulator. I checked the 77 connector before I swapped out the stator and it wasn't damaged at all. There was oil coming through the stator wires so my local HD said that it was def my stator. Now pulling all my primary out, clutch the whole nine and spending 100$ on a stator and to not have it be fixed im like what the heck haha. But hey at least I know I have a new stator now. | ||
| Buell_bert |
The bad stator may have fried the voltage regulator. Electricity does strange stuff EH. Well you have a couple good batteries. | ||
| Sparky |
There might be a parasitic current drain on the electrical system that is occuring when the key is off (and/or on) thus causing the battery to lose charge. There are procedures in the FSM to troubleshoot this condition. There's another thing the tech should have checked after installing a new stator and that is to verify that battery voltage does indeed increase when revved above 2 grand. If he/she didn't do this after the installation was done, they ought to redo the job until it is done right (on their dime). | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
Sparky I hear what you are saying. This was done by myself and a friend whom is a mechanic by trade. He has worked on tons of harley's and jap bikes but not much into buells. Either way he knows what he is doing and all. I think the install of the stator was fine. He believes that I may have a bad wire somewhere causing this but I will also advise him of the ignition troubleshooting as well. | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
Hey guys need major help quick forgot my manual at home and want to test the stator, VR and what not and need the instructions... ANYONE? | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
Alright, I went and checked my 77 connector today after I changed the stator and had another failure and the red wire from the main harness the terminal was all melted/ not the wires coming from the VR. From what I can tell in my thoughts anyway are they upgraded the connector so now the new stators come with have mAybe some difference electrically and thus causing the old style 77 conector to melt. This is what seems to happen where I stand currently. The dealership (from research on here) have a 77 connector rebuild kit that changes the connector to the new style. Now my main question is do I need to change my VR or just the connector. My buddy tested the electrical system and all seemed to be testing ok only I had a major drop in voltage when we were just letting the bike sit for about 30 min then tested the voltage again and it was down to 12.8 then to 12.3. So there is def a draw on the system somewhere. I'm thinking that now its the 77 connector being melted causing the draw. The bike did show the battery pushing volts when the bike is revved. Seems to be just this connector and not my VR. | ||
| Rays |
The '77 connector melting starts with a resistive connection and in every case I have seen it has been a slightly spread (or massively spread in some cases) female socket. This is on the loom side of regulator connection. Heat develops as a function of current and resistance so what starts off as slight resistance can lead to a complete meltdown of the housing when you do the maths. This system is capable of 30 odd amps and power=current squared X resistance. I would either bypass the '77 connector completely or replace it with a new one (but make 100% sure of the crimping as 'close enough' does not cut it when dealing with high current pins and sockets) before I went any further. | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
Ray's, How often do you hear about clipping out the socket all together and solder a piece of wire in as replacement. My buddy helping me said it if was his bike he would bypass it and do solder the joints throw heatshrink around it and some electrical wrap and call it done. He has built a few choppers and stated that its kind of a dumb idea to have a connector. But buell pribably puts it there because it is a poduction bike. Making it easy for a customer to change out a VR rather than have soldering experience. | ||
| Rays |
Plenty of guys in the Uly section have done exactly that - if you are out of warranty and are in the position to do work yourself or via a friend I wouldn't hesitate. The problem with fitting different crimped pins is that very few people have the correct crimping tools so you can actually introduce problems. I would use a stripped-down in-line electrical crimp connector for good mechanical support and solder the wires, use glue-lined heat shrink to keep out the elements and forget about it. Another product would be self-vulcanising tape. Here is the technique being used to repair the blinker splice in a Uly - the insulation of the in-line connector has been cut off. I used a large one here to fit three wires but if you match the connector to the wire you will get an excellent result.  The only thing that you need to be careful about doing this is keeping track of the positive output of the regulator. Both of the wires are black so dead easy to get them swapped. If if you do get mixed up just use an ohmmeter to measure to the case of the regulator - the ground is actually grounded internally in the regulator to the case. If you search in the BB&D section of the forum you will see all sorts of ways of joining these wires without normal connectors. I have been cleaning my '77 connector every couple of services since I had my original problem and just haven't got around to fixing it properly. | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
I hear what you are saying. Luckily for me I work in the electric power semiconductor field and have a full production floor filled with all the tools and crimps and enough solder to build a house. I see what you are saying about the crimp. Now when you mention using a crimp tool and solder? Where are you talking about soldering? I take this as maybe soldering the wires to the connector end which is metal? Usually I would either crimp the wires, shrink wrap each one individually then 1 pc of shrink for the whole connection and be done. Or I would strip back the wires solder the connections, shrink wrap and then shrink the whole thing together and be good. What are your thoughts. | ||
| Rays |
I have helped a lot of folk with electrical fixes on their Buells and try and make the repair advice as easy to achieve as possible. These are pretty heavy gauge wires to solder together successfully for a beginner. The in-line crimp to hold things in place but to solder instead of crimp is something that most handymen could do and get a pretty fair result. Now that you describe what have at your disposal and you clearly know what you are doing then I would say what you propose is fine. My apologies for getting back to joining wires 101.  I actually think that joining the wires as you propose is a better solution than the 'updated' connector. If you look up the specs for the particular Deutsch connectors (2-pin DTP) they are rated at a lower current rating than the original Delphi Metri-Pack 480's (42 amp). | ||
| Adrenaline0210 |
hmm that's interesting. You would almost think the updated connector would be rated for more amps due to the old connectors melting. |
