| Author | Message | ||
     Ratbuell |
Alternate title: "Who knew a Kuryakyn voltmeter flashed below 8V?" Kim and I went to the Res Ride today. Got there late - totally my fault, something about working 13 hours the day before and not having enough caffeine in my system to motivate at the proper hour. My apologies again to everyone - we had a great time, sorry we delayed the start of the main loop! Anyway. Ride the 150 miles from here to Altoona(ish - there's another story there....damn GPS!). Literally turn the bike around, shake hands with Vern and a few others, and we all head out on the main loop. No rest for the weary LOL. We head out on a very....*enthusiastic* ride. The pace was similar to that of the "parade lap" at the 25th Homecoming. Make it through the ride; make it through some AWESOME bbq (and nobody throws food at me for making the ride late), have some great talks, enjoy the day. Saddle up to head back home. Vern is going to shadow us part of the way on his way back south. We get to about an hour from our house, hit a McD's so we can chat for a bit, grab a bite of food-like-substance, and head on our separate ways. Vern heads his way. Kim and I pull out of the lot and head ours. Hm, it's awfully dark. Ah. Scrape the mud and crap off the low-beam lens...better, but still awfully yellow. Hm. Toggle the high beams, wired with the 55w Hella 4" driving lights in addition to the stock high beam, and it's better. But not "cook the deer where they stand" bright like it usually is. Check gauges. Voltmeter mounted to the GPS bracket on the RH bar...no green, just red and amber. Ruh-roh, raggy.... Hour from home, 10pm..."rural" is a generous description. I elect not to tell Kim just yet. Ride about 20 miles, and that's where I discover the 8v flash "feature". Hotel parking lot. Tool bag. Flashlight. Laptop and ECMspy cable Wishing I had my .38, "just in case". Commence diagnosis and disassembly. Hook up, fire up, system shows 8.7v. Rock solid 8.7. Not good. Front pulley cover off, 77 looks fine, no melting. But...there's primary fluid there, dripping onto the muffler. Grrrrr....could be the enthusiastic pace from earlier...could be stator-cook. Have Kim hold the bike upright, and pull the clutch inspection cover. Smells...like nasty fluid, but not like stator-bbq and the level is good. Hm. Reassemble that stuff, pull the seat. Battery terminals are a little warm. Torque them down like mad. Neg terminal is on backwards - if you picture it shaped like the letter P, with the round part of the P being where the cable fits...it's installed with that side of it facing the battery, instead of the flat side. Seems to take torque, though. Fire it up - nearly didn't fire, crrrrrankcrankcrankclick, crrrankFIRE...green light flickers. ECMspy shows 11.7. 11.9. 12.2. YAY!!!! Seat back on. Laptop and tools back in saddlebag. We hop on...and go a mile before the green light goes out again. Pull into a crane factory parking lot (really alarming the security guard in the process - remember, nearly 11pm now), yank the seat, remove the neg terminal and flip it so the flat side faces the battery, and the round side is facing away from the battery - allowing *contact*. Fires up. Green light is back. GPS - and my vague recollection of the trip out - says we're within an hour of the house, mostly populated from here to home. Roll home. Once in a while on the highway, during the last couple miles, the green light would latch off all of sudden and the headlight would dim at the same time. Then it would latch back on, and the headlight would go full again. I'll be testing the stator and the VR tomorrow with manual and voltmeter in hand. Bike's plugged into the tender overnight. I'm HOPING dead battery. It's an '06...with the OEM battery still in it. And the terminal has been reversed for over 1000 miles - last time it was out was when the shop replaced my belt and base gaskets in March, right before the warranty expired. So no telling how long I've been draining it. Always had a green light...but this is the first time I've had Kim on the back for an extended period of time so maybe the bodyweight on the seat was making the terminal angry. Or wiggling it enough to lose contact. We probably rode most of the day with it acting up, and of course it waited until after dark (on a 500 mile day) to show a symptom over an hour from home, late at night (isn't that always the way?). Once we got home, though, I told her what that little "103mph" was in the bottom corner of the GPS screen....maybe shoulda kept that to myself, now that I think about it  | ||
| Ourdee |
Glad to read a almost happy ending. | ||
| Pso |
I had the #77 plug problem on my 06 so I hard wired it. this past year I was having a problem that was indicated by a dropping of the voltage (as numerically indicated on my GPS). Voltage would start out ok, but would drop over a short period of time, finaly got down to about 11 v. I went in and found that the plug (I think it may be #69) that goes from the stator to the V regulator was toasting one of the connections like what happens in the #77 plug. this is the plug with three black wires in and then three out to the VR. I hard wired these connections and now I am running a consistant 14.1 or .2 V withot extras running. Good luck I hate electrical gremlins. | ||
| Crusty |
Sounds like the Voltage regulator is dying, to me. Terri had the opposite problem with her lightning. Everything would check out good, then a headlight would blow. I checked the voltage with a meter, and it was within specs, so I looked at everything that I could think of, and what a few other folks suggested, as well. I finally found the problem when I attached a VOM with a High and Low Hold feature to the bike and went for a ride. all was fine, then suddenly, the voltage spiked at 19,46V. We replaced the regulator, and the bike's been fine since. (I have since installed a voltage monitor, though). | ||
| Nittanyxt |
I had nothing to do with that 103!  | ||
| Sekalilgai |
glad you made it home safe...enthusiastic eh? not sure if you've tried this but checking the battery terminals when the bike is warm sometimes shows loose terminals...yeah 77 is worth a look-see | ||
| Ratbuell |
Well....fired it up in the garage after being on a tender all night. Sitting doing nothing, battery V was 12.8. Fired it up, kuryakyn meter showed only amber again...and battery V on the "real" voltmeter went from 12.2...to 12.1...to 12.0....to 11.9... Faster I revved it, quicker it dropped. &^#$)(@*&!!!!!! Start the diagnosis with the meter and the manual. Stator output is a *little* low on the 1-3 setup, 31v on the manual's recommended 32-40v. The other 2 tests (1-2, and 2-3) were 32.x. I'm calling this close enough for government work  Nothing grounded on the stator, either to ground or to another leg. Tried to unhook the 77 just to check it in daylight...welded shut. Hmmmm. Pliers on both sides and I finally got it open. Yep, she's melted on one pin. I guess it unplugged and reconnected the other night because it was...well...hot from being ridden all day. Time for a trip to Home Depot. Well pump connector, here I come. I'll install and check the system again. Hopefully riding for 2 hours with it acting up didn't kill the VR.... (Message edited by ratbuell on May 31, 2010) | ||
| Ratbuell |
FIXED. Wired it up with new screw-terminal splices...14.4V at idle. Sweeet, nothing else bad in the system...at least not when the bike's cold. Here's what I got (sorry for the crappy phone pics):  It is that black piece of plastic with four screw terminals in it. It's a little bulky, though, so I removed 2 of the connectors and used them by themselves:  And yes, that's heat-shrink on there. I took the pic before I shrunk it in place so everything would be visible. All I had to do with this setup was cut out the 77. Cut the wires as close to the connector as possible. Strip, install in the new ones, done. I'll check them once in a while to make sure the heatshrink is holding up and they're not rubbing through or anything. | ||
| Thesmaz |
Where did you get that kit? I'll be replacing my VR and stator soon and I'd prefer to go that route instead of the connector. | ||
| Teeps |
Is that splice kit recommended for automotive stranded wire repair? If not I'd be concerned about vibration causing a problem in the future. The best solution is to get the updated connector kit from Buell. or from http://badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/3842/46 4853.html?1245807713 This info from Gunter: Id073897 Posted on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 02:04 am: The VRs are not broken in the case of a melted connector 77, all that needs to be done is to replace the connector (Delphi Metri Pack Series 480, http://whiteproducts.com/sealed480.shtml). But you could get the weirdest results if AC input is not working properly. This is a result of the analog circuits driving the VR - their task is to cut connection to the stator as soon as voltage exceeds a given limit. The driver circuits rely on a smooth sine-shaped input, which is not given whith broken AC wires, "flapping" AC connectors or grounded stator wires. As a rule of thumb: before replacing a VR check stator first. It might well be the real source of the problem. The melting connector 77 has been covered in many posts, as have countermeasures to fight the increasing contact resistance that's causing the heat. (Message edited by teeps on June 01, 2010) | ||
| Etennuly |
Good to see that it 'limped' home. When my '77' connector got ugly, I simply cut it out, soldered the wires, heat-shrink covered them and have gone about 30,000 miles since, so far. I ran into heavy fog on 522 shortly after leaving you guys. 20 mph for about 30 miles on that back road was stimulating to say the least. I made it to the first exit past Winchester where a bed in a motel was calling for me. As always, I enjoyed riding with you, and it was great to finally meet Kim. Sandy rode the last fifty miles or so home with me.....that was a nice ending for my trip. Monday was another story. A little bit about that on the Res Ride thread. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
It would have been better if they'd of engineered it so the wires connected up under the seat instead of where they could potentially be underwater during a creek crossing. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I'm not worried about vibration. The 10 gauge wire just BARELY fits into the connector, and the lugs tighten down quite nicely. Time will tell. I did about 50 HARD miles today and it behaved just like normal - 2 green lights on the meter for about 3 minutes after startup, then one steady green the rest of the ride. If I was at a light, idling, with my aux/hi beams on, I'd lose the green...but as soon as I go to low beam the green comes right back on. Got the kit at Home Depot, in the electrical aisle (in ours, they were at the end near the wire strippers, and voltmeters). Vern - sucks you ran into that fog. Have to say, that was one thing we didn't hit. Great seeing you again, and Kim really enjoyed your company. Can't wait for HC so we can do it all again Oh, and splitting the difference on the timing? Nailed it. Fan ran 25% as much as it did on ResRide, still ran OK as long as I wasn't in the "wrong" gear - low RPM/high throttle opening would net me a ping or two, but a downshift would fix that | ||
| Midnightrider |
Joe Had a similar problem with the 77 connector and opted for the posilock connector. Not a problem since  http://www.posi-lock.com/posilock.html |
