Alternator Again?

[fleetmechanic]

2011 Police Road King with about 46,000 mi.  I replaced the regulator and then the stator about 8K miles ago last year.  Once again there is no charge to the battery.  When I check the stator leads to ground they are all 3 OK and there is continuity between the 3 leads.  Once the bike is started, two of the leads will read 26-40 VAC but when another two leads are tested the output is about 3 volts.  I haven't opened it up yet but it seems odd that there would be continuity but then loss of connection once the bike is running.

[Buglet]

    No its not that odd, had it happen more then once once there a load on it the connection is lost.

[Coyote]

The stator is bad.

[Phu Cat]

I'd say Coyote is correct.  Open the derby cover and sniff the atmosphere.  If it smells like burnt varnish you have verified the problem.  Installing a Cycle Lectric stator will likely keep this from happening again.

PC

[Ratfade]

My personal experience with Cycle Electric and its products was excellent.

[nibroc]

My personal experience with Cycle Electric and its products was excellent.

mine too!!!!!!

[fleetmechanic]

Well, the stator smelled fine, looked fine and was bad after 8K miles.  Sad.
I bought an OEM one because it was handy but I'll look into CE for the future.

[Coyote]

Well, the stator smelled fine, looked fine and was bad after 8K miles.  Sad.
I bought an OEM one because it was handy but I'll look into CE for the future.

The deal is the stator can go bad due to shorts created across a winding due to vibration. The generic continuity test will still pass even though the stator is bad. You won't smell anything if it never got hot.  If you did a low ohms test across each winding you can see the bad ones.

That's why the SM has the voltage test across each winding. This tells the rest of the story and how I knew it was bad.

[fleetmechanic]

Each of the 3 leads showed .3 ohms to the other ones but each one also showed 147 ohms to the frame of the stator.  That tells us it was grounded? Seems like the windings should have 0 ohms to the frame which is grounded.

[Coyote]

I doubt your meter can accurately read resistance below an ohm or two.

The windings should ohm infinite (not 0) to the frame ground or the stator frame.

[fleetmechanic]

I was just getting ready to correct that post from 0 to infinite.  Thanks.  When I tested the leads to grounds on the bike it showed infinite so I must have not been touching points that are actually well grounded.

[Coyote]

I suspect you did the test correctly. Just because a stator winding is shorted to itself, does not mean it is shorted to ground.

[Norton Commando]

My personal experience with Cycle Electric and its products was excellent.

mine too!!!!!!

Me three!!!

Jason

[harley#1]

the oil in the primary does a lot of work for the amount in there.it lubs and cools all internal parts including charging system. some says use 28 oz some 32oz. I use 42 oz of rotella 15-40 and change every 5k with oil and filter. 115k on everything inside(i did change the chain at 80k just because of the mileage but looked fine) changed comp to newest S/E at 65k and as the last check at 95k everything looks new.