Suggestions on a Honda charging system

Don't know if they sell them where you are, but there's a handy product
called sandflex polishing blocks. Its a rubber block filled with diamond
particles and comes in a variety of grades from very coarse to "mirror
finish", they're not cheap but there are cheaper imitation brands which are
predictably not as good.

 

None.

Ted

 

Brasso.

Ted

 

Thanks, one further question - did you clean the Brasso off afterwards?
Or is the makeup of that stuff such that it doesn't matter?

 

I cleaned it off with some old gasoline I had around that had gone bad
(from the lawnmower tank) Of course, gasoline like most petroleum
products is an insulator, but the thin film of gas left on the ring would
be wiped off quite quickly by the brushes.

Brasso is likely conductive. With polishes, of course you apply them
sparingly to the rag and use elbow grease so your not gopping it
onto the ring to begin with, but there is no point in getting even a small
amount of dusty grit into the mechanism later.

The interesting thing I found was that this even happened to the
slip rings at all. I don't know what metal the brushes were made of
(probably copper and graphite powder and a clay binder) but their
resistance was quite low - yet whatever was deposited on the slip
rings had quite a high resistance, comparatively. Copper Oxide
is normally soft and easily wiped away by the action of the brushes
on the slip ring. I guess maybe the age of the bike had deposited such
a thick film that it didn't matter.

Ted