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Electric Problems - Charging

O

obscura

Joined Sep 2009
21 Posts | 0+
Lytham St.Annes
Just been to Croatia on my 2006 RSV Factory - coming of the Rotterdam to Hull ferry the bike wouldn't start - as if the battery was flat. Called the AA - the spanner checked it out and told me it was the Rectifier/Regulator had failed as there was no charge doing to the battery.

New item £200 - so I picked up one from Ebay for £30 which was cheap compared with the rest. Fitted and still no charge going to the battery.

I've had them both tested and checked against a working item (Off my friends RSV) and mine is fine . I also fitted my two Rect/Reg and they both charge his system.

So I'm now thinking its either a loose connection or the alternator.

As anyone experienced this.

How do I get to the alternator - will I have to take the Oil Tank out and drain the engine?

I've spotted the 14mm alley key bolt. Do I need to take this off with the rest of the casing bolts?

Any help or ideas on this would be great.

Thanks
Dale
 
Hola Obscura and welcome aboard :)

Okay before we hit the panic button you need to test the output from the alternator, that would be the 3 wires (yellow in colour ?) going to a large connector block at the REC/REC.
With the engine running you need to connect a multimeter (VACsetting !!)across each of the terminals.
That is between 1-2, 1-3, 2-3 you should be getting around 60 vac rising to around 80 vac at 4500-5000 rpm (you wont need to go higher than that).
HOWEVER

If you dont get those kind of readings all is not lost , there is another connector between the cylinders that can get horribly furred up and this causes a high resistance which then melts it causing a lack of charge.

Also with the rec/rec connected check the voltage at the battery
 
Dale

I took my bike to France recently and it covered 800 miles without a hiccup. A week later while out for a ride the bike started to misfire and when I pulled over it wouldn't restart. I called out the AA who confirmed that there was no charge reaching the battery. They charged the battery enough for me to get home and I booked the bike into my local dealer. They found that the stator in the alternator had burnt out (a right burnt mess by all accounts) hence no charge reaching the battery. I had previously checked the infamous brown connector near the rectifier for signs of burning and it had seemed alright but the dealer said that he had a job to separate the connector as it had melted internally. They sent the stator away to be rewired and I got the bike back about three weeks later (the delay was caused by the wait for an alternator cover gasket). Total cost of repair £257. I think the moral here is that even if the brown connector looks okay theres a fair chance that it's starting to corrode, causing resitance which then causes the alternator to burnt out. First chance I get I'm going to get rid of the brown connector and hard wire the connections. Hope this helps!
 
Thanks to both of you for your fast replies.

Kiwi_Rsv. I've just nipped out to the bike. I think the 2006 RSV's got an update on the wiring loom. The cable appears to go from the Alternator all the way to the RECT/REG brown connector without any other connection. I ran the bike and across each terminal of the brown connector block I was getting around 1.2v on the fluke read out. Thats not right is it?!??!

Clionpp_ Thanks for the info - that's exactly what mine had been doing. Can't believe how hard it is to get to all the alternator components, draining the oil and all, messy!
Tempted to get into the dealers - however I've always enjoyed doing the work myself - Better get a gasket ordered.
 
Mate, drop Griff a line ('Fusebox' on here) and see if he has a gasket in stock - I know he ordered up a couple for my bike and only used one so he might still have one. Apart from draining the oil and moving the tank, the stator is no biggie to get to really. Just make sure you seal the alternator wire grommet (where it exits the case) with a bit of goo just to make sure it's oil tight.
PS. Welcome and how was biking in Croatia?
 
A303 - Thanks for the message, I'll drop him a line and see if he's got one. What's the damage? I've also noticed on a couple of comments, that I'll have to reseal with loctite. Is there a special one I will need?

I could do with an Oil change after the trip really so its not all bad.

Croatia was superb. I've dumped a few photograph from the trip on here so you should get an idea. If you like touring europe then head that way - take Road 7 through Slovenia (unbelievable) and that will turn into a costal road called the '8' in Croatia. It will take you through Rijeka (a great city to stop for the night and the ladies are beautiful everywhere you look) - Then the next day continue on the 8 towards Zadar - don't go near the motorways, this costal road HAS TO BE RIDDEN! Enjoy

Thanks again...!!
 
search the web for the 'charging mod'. Basically the aprilia wiring is to thin to charge the battery so you add extra wires and get better voltage at the battery. Also carry out the 'brown connector mod'
I did it to mine this and a new 14a battery meant I never had any problems with the bike. Previously it used to run flat on the way to work as the bike didn't charge its battery once over 5k rpm and the voltage used to drop off from 2k rpm
 
allright mate,i had the same problem with my 05 rsv.i got a new stator from electrex world (www.electrexworld.co.uk) for £95 and the gaskit from ultimateparts for about £12.
done the work my self and with the oil and filter it cost about £160.
you do have to drain the engine and i took the tank off just to get it out of the way
the 14mm allen key bolt dose not need to be removed, when all the stator casing allen bolts are taken out you will have to tug the casing off the engine as the magnetic pull of the fly wheel is quite strong.
at a slow jog along this took me about two hours to do from panels off to back on again.
 
Lee - thanks for the info - starting to get a good picture of what has happened here, I think its time to get stuck in. Can the Stators not be repaired?! I've got a lot of Electronic / Electrical engineers & geeks at work - I might take it in and see what they can do.

If you check GAZ's message out - interesting point that the Aprilia's wiring in the area isn't thick enough to put a good charge on the system - I might have to look into modifying the loom here.

I tour every year now, running one 100w headlamp (so that the bike is still visible to road users on sunny days) and the Garmin 550 - not sure if that what an unnecessary load of the system? Don't fancy going through all this again once I've repaired it.

Apparently if the brown connector corrodes slightly it will cause resistance in the loom and then burn out the stator?! If this is correct I need to replace this brown connector for something a little more robust. Any thought on that point.

Cheers
Dale

PS. Suns out in Lytham today - I'm off - The RSV is ill in the garage - lifes a bitch. Better get it fixed soon before the great british winter is around us!
 
100w bulb is one hell of a bulb. 35/55w are normal.

The garmin charging will pull hardly any Watts so dont worry about that.

Is the battery old?
 
yes mate it can be rewound but i bought a new one as i use the bike every day to get to work and home again so to have it rewound was no good to me as the turn around was to slow.
as for the brown connector get rid of it and solder the wires together and put some shrink wrap over the joints.
you might find that between the stator and the rectifire there are two of these brown plugs,one behind the rad water bottle and the one from the rectifire.when i striped mine down these plugs were coroded to gether which screwd up the stator.
hope some of this helps
 
AREESSMILL - Only running one of the 100w lamps instead of the two 50w - thought it would be ok?!

Ok about the Garmin, I'm happy with that.

Battery - about 2 years, unable to leave the bike on an optimate all the time as I rent the lock up at the rear of my house - only have power to it when I run an armored cable across the alley when I'm working in there. How can I check the condition of the battery. I've put a full charge on it and ran the bike and its still just using the battery without charging it.


LEE - From the stator I only have 1 Brown connector as mine is a 2006 Factory. This is located at the RECT/REG unit behind the front fairing panel. Will look into some fancy new connectors, soldering is best yet I'm not sure I'd like to do it to loom incase there are problems at a later date with the RECT/REG. Thanks for the reply!
 
Right - I've got it apart but I've got the feeling this is much easier when the engine is out. I can't remove the alternator as the brown connector is getting trapped around all the water hoses/cylinder heads/etc.

Do I have to remove the air box and throttle bodies to get this connector and cable through?

I've attached a few photographs to show the mess I've made.

Any advise would be great regarding this cable.


/Users/daleellis/Desktop/RSV repair/IMG_0999.jpg
/Users/daleellis/Desktop/RSV repair/IMG_1000.jpg
 
yes mate i had the same problem with mine so the first thing i done was to get a long bit of string and tape it to the wire that goes to the stator then i cut the brown plug off this means its free to pull the wire through and over the top of the engine.
this also ment that when my new stator was put on i could tape the string back on to the wire coming from the stator and pull it through to the other side of the bike with no problems at all.
i cannot stress how important it is to get rid of the brown plug as this is the reson that the stator burns out .
if you do have to replace the rectifire just cut the wires and re solder them
i have done this mod with mine and so have many others on this site, do a serch on "brown plug mods" all the info is on there.
hope this helps mate
 
Lee - I've just done that - cut the brown connector off and pulled it through with a bit of twin and earth for when I refit the new one. Nice one!

Do you know how much it is to get it rewound? ...might be easier and quicker getting a new one!

Spotted a gasket on ebay for £10 PART No: AP0650341 is about right?
 
hi, gasket part number is correct mine cost £13 deliverd
i bought a new stator as it was the same price to have it rewound
 
Dale

It cost £75 to get my stator rewired.

Whilst I was waiting for the work to be done I did some research on the problem. The alternators are manufactured by Denso who also supply a number of other motorcycle manufacturers. The RSV models up to late 2003 were fitted with 380 watt units which don't seem to suffer any problems. The 2004 onwards models were fitted with a 500 watt unit which does have it's problems. Most of the other manufacturers acknowledged that there were problems with the unit and replaced them but not Aprilia. Unlike on a car alternator which only provides power at a level to suit the power demands on it, on a motorcycle the alternator always works flat out at maximum output. Power that isn't required is got rid off as heat through the rectifier. This isn't a problem until you get some resistance in the circuit i.e. bad connection at brown connectors. this causes the wiring on the stator to verheat and burn out. One of the forums I visited mentioned an American company which rewires the stators with thicker gauge wire. The thicker wire is more resistant to overheating but the increase in it's thickness means that less wire can be wound on the stator which results in a lower output from the alternator - not necessarily a bad thing. Some people that have fitted these adapted stators have suffered further breakdown after 10000 miles or so which suggests that the brown connectors remain a problem while they remain.

I hope these ramblings give an insight into the cause of the problem.
 
Fit HID bulbs and your current draw will be much less mate. As for keeping your battery on an optimizer there is an option for you. Use a large car battery and an inverter. The inverter can cost as little as £30, and the car battery can be carried back to your house once a month for an overnight charge. The drain is in milliwatts only, so will keep your bike battery sweet.
When i cut out my brown connectors, I ran thicker cable from the stator to the reg/rec, just to help with the current traveling to the reg/rec.
 
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