Just back from the MotoGiro in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, USA. Around 450 kilometers, 110 bikes, all pre 1969, and under 350cc (or something like that).
Giro.jpg
I fried two more batteries over the weekend. Both read 4.5V now and neither will charge with trickle or straight connected to a DC power supply. Dropped a cell on each?
This is the graveyard of batteries at this point, minus one more wet acid I already recycled. Two different regulators plus one more that MrkPrsn gave me at the Giro (great to meet another Motoscrub in person!) as well as the original regulator.
batts-n-regs.jpg
I had onboard voltmeters all weekend. The one at the battery usually hovered between 7.2V and 7.4V (maybe a touch higher?) and the one at the coil was 6.0V-6.4V
There was one point that I pulled over on the side of the road for something else, and the bike sputtered out when I let the RPMs drop. Both onboard voltmeters read zero with everything connected and on. I disconnected the battery and measured DC voltage with my handheld meter and it was around 5V, but dropped to nearly zero when I put the battery contacts back on. I kicked the starter lever to see if the points open/closed made any difference, but no. Disconnected the battery to prevent more damage and looked for shorted wires. Took the headlight apart, tightend all the small flathead contacts inside, and put it back together. The battery read 5V with everything connected again so I bump-started it downhill in first gear to get the RPMs high enough and it eventually caught so I could finish that leg of the race. Don't know if the headlight contacts made a difference, or if something was overheated and shorting (such as the regulator or coil) and cooled while I was working?
I suspect I have too much juice now and I'm over-charging the battery. Eventually I lose a cell in the battery and bike won't idle/run at low RPMs. Then I can't get it started again if I shut it off. Mid 7Vs seems like a lot during two full days of riding.
Anyway, I think the thing I was missing during most of this thread was that the extra ground on the stator needed to be undone AND the regulator needs the battery in place to function. At many points I was trying to measure DC voltage coming from the regulator and several people have told me that the battery needs to be in place for the regulator to function correctly.
Thoughts?
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.