so i'm having this electrical non-charging problem... after buying a stator on ebay, i got bored waiting for it to get here and decided to use my head and check the rotor... the screwdriver wouldn't stick and hold to it.... i could feel a little force, but not much. should the screwdriver actually stick and hold on it's own? is this my problem? will my stator be back on ebay in a week? thanks, -- john
The 1975 KZ400D did not use a permanent magnet rotor. It used a fairly unique design of an excited field style system with a fixed field coil that supplied the magnetic field to a moveable rotor, which in turn induces a changing magnetic field in the stator. I would not expect the rotor or the field coil to have a strong magnetic field without the field coil being connected to the regulator. My KZ650B1 worked the same way, distinctly different from the typical exicted field design which uses slip rings to supply field current to a moving rotor, as in the DOHC CB750/900/1000. Did you perform any electrical tests of the various components before buying the stator? What, if any, were your results?
hehe... wellll... i tested my rectifier according to the manual, and it checked out. the regulator is a new used part, and the previous owner had replaced the field coil w/ a new used part in an attempt to solve the electrical problem. i tried to test for voltage coming off the three yellow wires from the stator (w/ + and - to pins, and w/ + to a pin and - to ground) and was unable to see voltage, but did see a spark or two while attempting to test. i sorta assumed the new used parts were working and deduced that between the rotor and stator, it was probably the stator... since a magnet wouldn't just up and lose it's charge.... something i now understand can happen... anyway, the stator was NOS on ebay for $40 after shipping, so i jumped at the chance... perhaps a waste of money... my local bike shop and a bike mechanic friend told me a screwdriver should just stick to the rotor if it's good. are they confused b/c my bike is different? do you have suggestions on electrical tests i should perform to track this down/test my parts? the only other dynamo test in my manual involves a variable resistor, which i don't have and looks expensive. i couldn't test the regulator b/c i haven't had a working tach until recently, but can perform that test now...
I'm glad to see someone else buys brand new parts they don't actually need, on the grounds that they're cheap and one might as well.... I'm building up a stock of components for the Honda 400 Four that way. Best Ebay item was a NOS master cylinder repair kit. Genuine Honda item, all the components.... something you *will* need, one day.
No comment. Never assume *any* part is working. That will waste more time than any other mistake you can make. Always proceed from the assumption that nothing is 'trusted', everything has to be tested, directly or indirectly. Not a bad idea to keep one as a spare, if nothing else. I believe so, yes. If it wasn't clear from what I wrote before, your bike does not use a permanent magnet rotor. Neither does it use a rotating field coil as the '79- Honda DOHC CB750 did. Your bike's rotor is more of a pole piece that directs an externally applied field (from the stationary field coil) to the pole pieces of the stator. It is not a magnet. It probably will have some residual magnetism, but nothing compared to what a permanent magnet rotor has, which is what your bike mechanic buddy is used to seeing nearly 100% of the time nowadays. At least you can test the stator for shorts to ground, and winding-to-winding resistance. The resistance of any stator wire to ground should be infinity (no connection) and the resistance of any one yellow wire to any other yellow wire should be the same, and roughly an ohm or two, but not a dead short. I can't give you the exact numbers because I don't have my genuine Kawasaki manuals here at work. You would be well served to buy the genuine Kawasaki shop manual for this bike. Next, check the field coil the same way, with the regulator disconnected from the field coil wires, neither field coil wire should have any connection to ground, and the resistance between the two wires should be a few ohms, not open, not a dead short. Assuming the resistance tests pass, measure the AC, not DC, voltage from the three stator wires to each other, with the yellow stator wires disconnected from the regulator. Note that you still have to have the field coil wires connected to the regulator or there won't be any magnetic field present. You should see roughly 50V AC, again, not DC, when measuring the open circuit voltage on the stator wires at 3000 rpm or so. If all the resistance measurements check out, but there is no AC voltage or low AC voltage measured with the stator disconnected from the regulator, then you can *briefly* connect 12V directly to the field coil (with the regulator disconnected), and measure the AC voltage from the stator again. If the coils are good, you should see AC on the stator. If you do, but you didn't get any AC output when the regulator was driving the field coil, it is pretty likely that the regulator is the culprit. Get busy with that meter and get back to the group.
thanks much for the help/advice... had a friend moving this weekend, so no time yet, but i'll get the meter goin and let you know what i find... thanks again, -- john
Wire to wire was 0.5ohms for all three wires, manual says 0.4-0.6 is right. Wire to ground was infinity at Rx10K. 4.4-4.5 ohms on the field coil wires (manual says "about 4.8", less is short, more is open). no reading on either wire to ground. ok, ran this test. plz forgive me, i'm not sure how to read the multimeter. i ran the test at 4000rpm, w/ my multimeter set on ACV60 (i have AC6, 30, 60, 300, & 600). here's what my meter looked like: [DC] ^ 0 20 40 60 80 | 100 120 0 10 20 30 40 | 50 60 0 5 10 15 20 | 25 30 [AC] | [30V UP] 0 1 2 3 4 | 5 6 [AC] | [6V ONLY] so i assume i'm reading the 10,20,30 line, which puts me at around 45 ACV@4k rpm. this is lower than you expected. perhaps i'll rerun the test at 3000 as you suggested (it was late at night . does my reading qualify as low and warrent proceeding to the next test suggested? i don't think i'll ever leave the group at this rate... three new problems cropped up last night... will it ever end? i just want to ride :-\ -- john
It doesn't sound way low, I just pulled 50V out of my hat, so to speak. It might be a little low. Yes, I think you should test the AC output across all combinations of the three stator wires with a full 12V going into the field coil winding. According to section 'D' of the very good fault finding chart at: http://www.electrexusa.com/Images/fault_finding.pdf you should see at least 50V when running at 5000 rpm with the field coil 'full-fielded'. If you don't, the stator is probably bad. If you do, but you're still having low output, and all your previous resistance checks pass (and they did), the regulator is the problem. The full field test: disconnect the field coil winding and the stator windings from the regulator. Apply 12V across the field coil while running the engine at 5000 rpm, and measure AC volts across all three combinations of the three stator wires. The voltage should be fairly close to the same number for all three winding combinations. If any of them are less than 50V or if there is a marked difference between any of the readings (more than a couple of volts, I'd guess) then the stator is faulty. Good luck.
thanks very much for the advice, although i'm not 100% that i understood your suggestion. looking at the chart, i first rev'd to 5k and checked the dcv on the batt, and had approx 14.5-14.8 dcv (14.8 being what it expects). then i unplugged the stator wires and checked voltage on them at 5k (i didn't unplug the field coil wires or the regulator, b/c i'm unsure what should be plugged to what if i did so) and saw 60+ acv. so unless i made a mistake, at this point it sounds like the regulator or that i don't have a discharge problem at all. i only mention the latter b/c i've ridden the bike 20 miles or so (and i really need my permit, and tags, and insurance... sigh...) and haven't yet noticed a decrease in batt voltage. if i tested wrong, i'd appriciate any further pointers. otherwise, i think i'm going to keep riding it for now (and get legal about it) and test the voltage after every trip to see if i'm getting a discharge. but i'm a computer person, and one of my favorite sayings is: "problems that go away on their own can come back on their own"... bleh... thanks again for all the help! -- john
It sounds like the charging system is working fine, at least when the engine is running. I was under the impression that it was not, from your previous posts. You can have a system where the alternator charges the battery yet the battery runs down and loses charge, either because the battery itself self-discharges at a high rate, or there is some parasitic load on the battery that causes it to discharge. It is relatively simple to determine if there is such a parasitic load, disconnect the positive battery lead and measure how much DC current is flowing with the ignition key in the 'off' position. If there is more than a very small amount (in your case, I'd expect to see less than 1 milliamp), there is a defective component or a 'short' somewhere in the system that needs to be replaced or fixed. If there is no excessive parasitic current drain, yet the battery discharges over a short time (less than a month or two) then the battery is defective. Again, good luck.
so was i i rode it for two nights a while ago and the batt drained while riding to where the lights dimmed and it died and couldn't kick over. waited 5-10 min, drove halfway home, repeat... voltage was 10.5-ish.... that was pre carb tuning, when the bike idled around 3-4k rpm, but w/ the same (new) batt as right now....? i'd only owned the battery for a day or two, and the drain took place over two days of short riding at night after working on it (using the elec starter i/o kickstarting as i do now). no major electrical changes have been made since that time. once there was a sudden short outta nowhere that burned out a fuse and got the rectifier white wire very hot (melting the plastic fuse holder). last night after 10 miles of riding, my bike idled low and died twice in a short period (lights not dim) while i was holding in the clutch coasting, but starting right back up on the first kick. it died again as i pulled in the driveway about a mile away (after a couple stop signs). my wife says i have gremlins... i'm gonna get it legal and then just ride it and see what comes up. thanks very much for all the assistance, it taught me some good stuff. i've got some odds and ends to do in the meanwhile... -- john
