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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> What all would cause a battery to not charge?
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Message started by mrissippi on 08/24/13 at 14:52:18

Title: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mrissippi on 08/24/13 at 14:52:18

New battery, new rectifier. Tried 2 different rectifiers. 1 new 1 from a working bike. It's an '86. The bike runs and stays at 12 volts at the battery when running and rev'ing. Battery drains after a couple of short trips and won't start until charged up. Please help!

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mjs3790225 on 08/24/13 at 15:23:47

Do you have a multimeter? Hook it up to the battery and rev the engine. The voltage should increase higher than 12. If not, you aren't creating charge current. I'd check the 3 wires going to rectifier and make sure you are getting power off your stator.

If you are able to, download the manual to our bike and go to the section about the charging system. Real good step by step in there.

Hope that helps! Check that stator!

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by verslagen1 on 08/24/13 at 15:23:57

have you done this...
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1245984387

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mrissippi on 08/24/13 at 15:46:23

I get right at 12 volts at the battery on, off, and at higher rpms. It doesn't change. I have done the test on the rectifier with a multimeter and everything looked normal.

Ill check the good book.

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mjs3790225 on 08/24/13 at 16:26:14

Yeah, check the ohms off the stator first. Then check the voltage. If its a no pass, you probably need to do a stator swap. :-/

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by Charon - FSO on 08/24/13 at 17:15:30

It is also possible that one or more of the wires is damaged. They come out of the cover pretty near the belt, and if they were improperly routed or secured they could have gotten chewed up by the belt.

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by Digger on 08/24/13 at 21:33:40

103B32213C3D530 wrote:

True statement. See here:

www.suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1363989148

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by ToesNose on 08/25/13 at 03:56:31

Make sure your ground wire is secured properly on the engine as well, a bad ground will cause all sorts of mischief ::)

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mrissippi on 08/25/13 at 13:32:52

I get no signal from the 3 yellow wires coming from the stator. I traced them back from the r/r to the stator and everything looks fine.

Does anyone have any other ideas as to how I can test the stator?

Is a stator replacement a drop in procedure?
Will I have to drain my oil?
Any recommendations on a new stator?

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by Charon - FSO on 08/25/13 at 14:17:07

Ohms check, with engine stopped: should be infinity (open) from any of the yellow wires to ground. This with the three yellow wires disconnected from the regulator. Should be continuity from any yellow to any other yellow, but Clymer's doesn't give the reading other than saying "low resistance." Any pair should be about the same resistance as any other pair.

Voltage check: three yellow wires still disconnected, and engine running. Should get above 100 volts AC between any pair of yellow wires, with the engine at 5000 RPM.

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by babyhog on 08/25/13 at 17:20:49

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that the rectifiers are somewhat year-specific, at least generation specific? If your bike is an 86, what model did the donor rectifiers come from? Hopefully one of the experts will chime in here too, I could be totally off base, just something to consider.

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by greenmonster on 08/26/13 at 14:01:00

Mines an 86 and there was no difference with the Rectifier when I swapped it out. If you need to replace the Stator then you're going to have to pull the left side engine cover. Yes, this will require draining the oil. The stator comes off with the cover so you'll be able to get out of that nasty crouch you were in undoing all the cover bolts. A new stator is about a 100 bucks, and you can find them a lot of places online. RMStator has a service department, I think that they are based out of Quebec.

Title: Re: What all would cause a battery to not charge?
Post by mrissippi on 08/26/13 at 14:31:37

Well I put everything back together after charging the battery and tested the yellow wires coming from the stator and it was giving me a signal. Something could be wrong with my multimeter, my battery fully charged was dropping down to 6 volts when i was rev'ing it up. Didn't seem to stop the bike from starting and making a couple of short trips without any problems. I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks everyone that chimed in.