melted stator plug. what to test?

[nico]

Hi all,

Friday I was riding home from work, came to a stop light and the GS500 just died. Rolled to a stop on the shoulder and started looking around: found a melted stator plug. With the oem tool kit, I was able to rig that wiring, get a solid jump with the cables connected to a working car for about 10 minutes, and then rode home....to die 1/4 mile away. Got another jump connected to a car for another 10 minutes and the battery would not charge. Tried starting it connected to the car and it would not start then either. Walked it home.

Yesterday I went and got a proper battery (Yuasa) and re-did the stator plug with insulated spade connectors until I get a replacement 3-wire plug.

I did a search on here and came across a post from someone woth a melted stator plug due to the plug being defective, but Id like to test to make sure all is ok before i ride it again. Last night I repaired the plug, installed new battery and it started right up.

What values should I get where to make sure this was a defective plug and not something else?

Does it matter if I ride with the highbeam on all the time (during day time)?

[robfriedenberger]

Forgive me I may be wrong but you should get about 70-75AC from the stator coils when the bike is running, typically plugs just dont go bad, usually they need some thing to add resistance to make them warm up to melt than short. I'd take a look at what was left of the terminals see if they are rusted really bad, if they are great your fix should last a long time, if they are not start checking your stator. I guess I could of been a bad battery having to much drawn on it but, I'd expect to see a bike die before that would happen.

Look up the specs on here for the stator and test it should be an easy test

[dgyver]

My experience with melted plugs is from corrosion on the terminals. My TLR melted a headlight plug. A little electrical grease works great.

[cWj]

Just to whip the ol' dead horse a bit more -

I'm fighting the urge to get a 82 GS750 and was checking out areas of concern on GSResources. The consensus is that the electrics are the main concern.

In particular, cooked plugs = bad, corroded, dirty connections.

I suggest:

- checking your electrical connections for rust/corrosion
- getting a multimeter with a diode mode and checking the rectifier/regulator & stator (see you tube for instructions

So far as I know, hi-beam on all the time shouldn't be a problem* - other than ticking off people like me who despise having a direct 60W light beam fired into their eyes all the time**.

*by no means an expert
** way to know you live in NYC/NJ after hurricane Sandy: constant high beam use. No one even knew they had high beams before; now don't seem to know how to switch them back.

[nico]

Forgive me I may be wrong but you should get about 70-75AC from the stator coils when the bike is running, typically plugs just dont go bad, usually they need some thing to add resistance to make them warm up to melt than short. I'd take a look at what was left of the terminals see if they are rusted really bad, if they are great your fix should last a long time, if they are not start checking your stator. I guess I could of been a bad battery having to much drawn on it but, I'd expect to see a bike die before that would happen.

Look up the specs on here for the stator and test it should be an easy test

You know..it may well be a bad battery. I (stupidly) avoided getting the Yuasa OEM battery to save a few bucks, and got some no-name battery from a battery store. It crapped out (bike would not start) and the battery was not holding charge and declared 'shot' after a load test...so I got it replaced free. Now, on this replacement battery the plug from the stator melted.

Now, I've had this bike for about 1 year, and I've put almost 5,000 mile son it. In plugging and unplugging things from curious poking around, I found what looks like lithium grease on a plug. If that Stator plug had lithium grease on it, would that have cooked it? I'm thinking it was lithium grease..I worked in a bicycle shop a LONG time and still use lithium for when I overhaul bicycle stuff...and this stuff on the plug (one that has not yet melted) looks a heck of a lot like it.

I also just picked up a multimeter and will research the values and test.

I made the repair in Saturday, and rode it on Monday...40 min one way and 40 min back...no issues.

[nico]

My experience with melted plugs is from corrosion on the terminals. My TLR melted a headlight plug. A little electrical grease works great.

Got to get me some o'dat!! If you see my post above, I think there was lithium grease on it, not electrical grease.

[nico]

Just to whip the ol' dead horse a bit more -

I'm fighting the urge to get a 82 GS750 and was checking out areas of concern on GSResources. The consensus is that the electrics are the main concern.

In particular, cooked plugs = bad, corroded, dirty connections.

I suggest:

- checking your electrical connections for rust/corrosion
- getting a multimeter with a diode mode and checking the rectifier/regulator & stator (see you tube for instructions

So far as I know, hi-beam on all the time shouldn't be a problem* - other than ticking off people like me who despise having a direct 60W light beam fired into their eyes all the time**.

*by no means an expert
** way to know you live in NYC/NJ after hurricane Sandy: constant high beam use. No one even knew they had high beams before; now don't seem to know how to switch them back.

All good advice. thanks!

As for the high beam, I only use the high beam in the day time, once the sun goes down, I go to regular beam. I rode a Vespa PX for a long time and it was so much smaller and had less visual presence that I used the high beam to try and be seen a bit more easily..and the regular main beam at night as well, of course.

I need to upgrade the headlight, now that I think about it...it seems awfully dim and always been that way (I don't think it has any relation to the battery/melting harness issue...at least I hope)

[cWj]

I need to upgrade the headlight, now that I think about it...

I've got a dinged up '05/6 SV650 headlight sitting around if you want a project.

[nico]

Thanks for the offer on the SV light. Have to get her working properly before upgrades.


So, I finally sat down and tested and discovered that I did not have any ohm readings on the 3 leads that come from the stator with the bike not running....instead of having 1.02, I had 0.00.

This weekend I will be cleaning all connections, di-electric grease and installing the new Caltric rectifier/regulator.

Wish me luck!

[nico]

Well, I replaced the rectifier/regulator and went for a spin, only to have the bike die again and walk it back home for 2 miles. lol

Have a stator on the way...hope that resolves it.

When I installed the regulator/rectifier I also went through ALL of the electrical connection under the seat and cleaned as needed and as I could and dropped a small amount of do electric grease in all plugs. Also swapped out the starter solenoid, undid the 2 electrical connection that are bolted down with 1m bolts and scuffed them up pretty well until they were shiney, dielectric grease and tightened them back up.

Stator should be here next week....with a new gasket (that I replaced back in April I think) and also got a new tach cable too...to eliminate the wandering tach after 6,000 Rpm's.

I'll report back as I dive into this deeper

[cWj]

...you could have saved yourself time, money and walk with a multimeter.