What the Hell did I just do?

[thedaydreamer]

I went to test stator today

Started bike with MM leads on battery, battery read 12.8v,,,, revved engine went to 13.4v

Turned bike off

Set to OHMs unhooked stator tested continuity all leads read .5
Tested ground MM read OL

Went to test no load performance, stator unhooked like manual said with probes in stator side harness
Went to start bike and head a little "piff" sound and all power shut off
Battery test good, stator still tests good and is grounded, but now no power at all to bike
All fuses still intact, no power

I did start the bike with the probes in, does that matter?

What the hell did I do? What did I short out? aNY Ideas what to do from here?

Im really upset ATM

TY all

[Herb]

Verify that the battery contacts are clean and tight, check BOTH ends of the battery cable for clean/tight and that the cable end is good. On my 87 the positive lead had a bunch of corrision on the connector and wouldn't carry the load. I had an issue with a different bike that the ground lead was badly corroded and wouldn't carry the load.

[thedaydreamer]

TY herb
I dont dont how, but I replaced battery and have power,,,I think based upon the number this stator has issues, I gona replace it anyway, idle only getting 12.8v and 5k rev 13.4,,,,I think replace and the regulaor tests fine but bikes been powering down

[Herb]

TY herb
I dont dont how, but I replaced battery and have power,,,I think based upon the number this stator has issues, I gona replace it anyway, idle only getting 12.8v and 5k rev 13.4,,,,I think replace and the regulaor tests fine but bikes been powering down

I have been having the same kind of problem. I have an on/off toggle switch for the headlight (helps with starting in cold weather). If I run with the headlight on the battery slowly goes dead. I put a temporary volt meter on to check out what was happening and it shows a slow drop in votage with the headlight on.

Pretty sure it is the stator but haven't got around to t-shooting it yet.

[thedaydreamer]

I hear these 1400s are prone to stator issues, but hell, a 22yr old bike stuffs gona need to be replaced

[Herb]

I hear these 1400s are prone to stator issues, but hell, a 22yr old bike stuffs gona need to be replaced

My 87 lost a stator at 120,000 miles, the 99 lost it's first one a 130,000. I am not sure how many miles on this one as it is in a used engine that I bought to replace the other due to transmission problems. The guy I bought it from said it had about 25,000 on it but I think it was much more and I have put over 60,000 on it.

On both of those previous stators the connector for the 3 ac wires was badly corroded however it was always the top phase that went out. It is the one that sticks up out of the oil.

[thedaydreamer]

This bike has 24,000 mi, are you suggesting that it should last much longer, I have a new battery I will be testing tomorrw, but I feel that it should be holding a higher Volt rating at idle and rev

[FallenAngel]

Never mind

Just dig my Avitar

[sgtcall]

You said you heard a "little "piff"", could it be that you shorted out the kill switch? Starter switch? Something burned out in the headlight bucket?

To me it just sounds liked you shorted a wire or connection. You may need to start looking at the wiring to see if you can find something that looks burnt or bubbled.

[thedaydreamer]

I put a new battery in and now I have power, its just very strange that starting the bike with stator 3yellow harness unhooked caused this, Im doing more troubleshooting tomorrow, but I may replace the stator, some of the idle and rev tests were not giving me the proper voltage, or at least borderline voltage

[FallenAngel]

I put a new battery in and now I have power, its just very strange that starting the bike with stator 3yellow harness unhooked caused this, Im doing more troubleshooting tomorrow, but I may replace the stator, some of the idle and rev tests were not giving me the proper voltage, or at least borderline voltage

I was under the impression you had this figured out sso I changed my first post??
Your bike should run with the stator unhooked it just wont maintain the battery
You replaced the battery it regained power and started the bike and the stator ohms test is still good but the charging is poor??
I may consider swaping out the regulator' rectifier first or as well

Im still a little confused though as to what happened

[Herb]

This bike has 24,000 mi, are you suggesting that it should last much longer, I have a new battery I will be testing tomorrw, but I feel that it should be holding a higher Volt rating at idle and rev

I am saying that it should last much longer but that doesn't mean that you didn't get a bad one and there are a lot of things that can cause one to go bad. Or present symptoms of one going bad.

What I meant with this is that no, the 1400 really isn't that hard on stators.

The noise your heard was a short or a bad connection somewhere and needs to be figured out before going any farther. A short to ground in the system, a corroded connection or even broken/partly broken wires can cause a reduction in battery charging. Even little corrosion on connections, especially grounds, can cause a reduction in voltage.

After reading your posts it seems you are doing the T-shooting that is required. You said that you started the bike with the leads in, did you have the connector disconnected when you started it? If so there is nothing that you did wrong there that could have caused a loss of battery power.

The pfft noise you heard sounds like a major part of the problem.

Finding it may be a major PITA though.

[thedaydreamer]

When I unhooked the stator to test no load performance as per manual, I had the leads in the stator from the multimeter, when I turned the key to start bike all power was lost,and no matter where I put key, no power to bike,,,I never did accomplish the AC no load test as per 7-3 in the manual,,,The battery in there tested 12.6 at that time, I just put in a new battery and turned the key and bike came back on, at that point I took battery out and now its on charger till tomorrow for max juice,casue this battery is new and out of box I want max charge ,,,,tomorrow I will do one final test to detrmine if its charging upon idle and rev, if not ill make the decision to get a new stator,,,,,,The bike has recently been stalling, sometimes blows main fuse, others not,,,it will stall will no power, fuse intact, change battery bike works,,,,,I was blowing main fuses when i pluged them in last week butI believe I found and solved a short, but with a new battery I can rule some things out, after it stalled yesterday, it had power but no start,,,,,,then 1hr later it started with awful power like it had no fuel,,,,I did many mods lately and need a reason to get into carbs as I have open drags and drop in k&ns,,,,Im gona clean and inspect carbs and replace my OEM MJs from 125 - 140 to fac pro, 127.5 to 142.5 and see how she likes it

[Herb]

You have a short somewhere on the bike. A stator will not blow fuses, or kill all power, especially if it was disconnected from the system. You need to start t-shooting the rest of the electrical system looking for either a short or a really bad connection. Check out the power circuit from the battery to the starter since the problem happened as you hit the start button and workout form there.

BTW, you said it sometimes blows a fuse, is it always the same fuse and if so, which one?

A little story about something that happened to me many years ago.

On many of the older bikes there was only one fuse for the whole thing. I had a 74 Suzuki GT 550 that was that way. All of a sudden it started blowing the fuse every once in a while. I kept trying to find the short in the system. No joy. I finally got pissed and decided to put a piece of a bolt in for a fuse and figured I would find the short when things started smoking, a last resort way to find a problem...

I rode it for over a month with NO problem, I rode all over the coast of North Carolina with no problem. Put the fuse back in and it blew in less than a day. Put the bolt back in and kept riding it. I finally had a bulb blow out in the tach. When I pulled the tach apart I found a wire pinched between a chrome plate and the housing and it had a bare place on the insulation I used some RTV to seal the wire, put it where it belonged, put the fuse back in and never blew it again. There was enough of a short to blow the fuse, but not enough to let the smoke out of the insulation.

Keep it simple, work from one end of the system to the other, don't just jump around. I think you can pretty well eliminate the stator as the main issue although it may have been damaged by the real problem.

Electrical problems will make you tear your hair out and this is from a 30 year electrical and comm nav tech on military aircraft.

[FallenAngel]

Sounds to me you had a poor battery connection
Which will force the rectifier to go to full amp output and can blow your main fuse

[thedaydreamer]

Sounds to me you had a poor battery connection
Which will force the rectifier to go to full amp output and can blow your main fuse

I hope you're right, Ill have a brand new battery in the bike today or tomorrow, I did notice that the terminals on the old battery werent as clean as they should be,,,,,we will see with new battery for sure

[sgtcall]

Sounds to me you had a poor battery connection
Which will force the rectifier to go to full amp output and can blow your main fuse

I hope you're right, Ill have a brand new battery in the bike today or tomorrow, I did notice that the terminals on the old battery werent as clean as they should be,,,,,we will see with new battery for sure

When it comes to Intruders always start with the battery then work your way up. We have seen hundreds of cases where people have over diagnosed an issue, spending time and money, on something that could have been solved with clean battery connectors or a new battery. Don't forget to add star washers to your battery terminals, they fix everything.

[hillsy v2]

Sounds to me you had a poor battery connection
Which will force the rectifier to go to full amp output and can blow your main fuse

I hope you're right, Ill have a brand new battery in the bike today or tomorrow, I did notice that the terminals on the old battery werent as clean as they should be,,,,,we will see with new battery for sure

When it comes to Intruders always start with the battery then work your way up. We have seen hundreds of cases where people have over diagnosed an issue, spending time and money, on something that could have been solved with clean battery connectors or a new battery. Don't forget to add star washers to your battery terminals, they fix everything.

LOL at the star washers comment

But essentially yes - start with the easiest things first and move forward. Battery good / connected.....wiring all good....stator charging / connections good...RR to spec / connected...

There's only 3 components plus the wiring in the charging system so it's not overly complicated.

[sgtcall]

LOL at the star washers comment

But essentially yes - start with the easiest things first and move forward. Battery good / connected.....wiring all good....stator charging / connections good...RR to spec / connected...

There's only 3 components plus the wiring in the charging system so it's not overly complicated.

Only veterans of the purple board understand Star Washers.