Monday, January 20, 2014

Back on Three Wheels

Finally. on the road again. It really felt good to get out and about after almost two weeks. This was the road test after performing the maintenance and replacing the alternator and it was a beautiful morning to be out and about. It was a very warm 26°F but just for testings, turned on the heated grips, had the heated jacket liner and gloves on max and the battery voltage while running never went below 14.2 volts. This seems to have been a great upgrade.

On Saturday afternoon, I went to an Airhead tech day to see what was involved replacing the head bearings. He had invested in all of the bearing pullers to simplify the job. It turned out that the simplest way to get the bearing races in was the old fashion brass drift and a hammer. It was challenging to use the tool since it was an RT with the large "barn door" fairing and windshield. When I returned home, the box arrived from Euro Motoelectrics with my new alternator system. I had previously spent Friday night removing all remnants of the original alternator including unused wiring. The old rotor popped off easily from the front of the crankshaft using the special tool provided. Since one of the other local Airheads wanted to see what was involved with the installation, I spent the remainder of the evening putting the rest of the bike back together.

Here is the newly installed rotor and stator and note that there are only two wires from from the stator and out of the top of the engine, No slip rings or carbon brushes to energize the rotor as it is a permanent magnet. I believe that simpler is better and I hope that translates to more reliable. I had to remove a bunch of stuff again as I had forgotten to put one bolt that supports the back of the starter. The most difficult part of the installation was installing the stator (the steel plates wound with copper wire) with the aluminum rings as it kept wanting to "stick" to the permanent magnets in the rotor. The rectifier/voltage regulator is heavily finned and needs to be installed where it has a chance of staying cool. It is pictured below installed in the recommended location behind the battery next to the rear wheel. Just to the left is the triangular plastic side cover right under the seat. In fact, this post covers part of their warranty documentation as you need photos of the installation.

All that was left was the wiring. All of the pieces were included and I took advantage of the opportunity to cut all of the wire ties under the tank and reroute all of the wires, old and new, to clean things up. With all of the things added, it had become kind of a mess and even the original wiring wasn't routed correctly. Now it is much cleaner. All the new wires are now housed in plastic split loom and securely tied to the top tube. For the alternator, two wires were run from the stator, one from the hot side of a coil, one for the GEN light on the dash, ground and a fused connection to the battery. I'm still using the positive battery post on the Odyssey battery for all of the connections and there seems to be a lot of them, perhaps too many. It's probably time for a fuse box or some sort of power distribution solution.

Anyway, except for a quick functional test last night, this morning was the test ride. There was some initial concern when the battery voltage ran up to 14.5v shortly after starting but it settled down to about 13.5v at idle. With the stock system it was usually south of 12v at idle as nothing was coming off of the alternator. I rode around a bit including a stop at the turnout at the university of the first photo and after arriving back home and shutting everything off. I was still seeing 13.0v. Before, I was lucky to see 12.5v indicating a 75% charged battery. This is closer to 100% and even the starter sounds better. Maybe its imaginary but I think that this is a worthwhile upgrade for anyone with an old airhead. I had been thinking of doing this upgrade for about 5 years but as long as the original alternator worked, couldn't justify it.

On another note, I just heard from Aerostitch and they are waiting for the grey material for the bulk of the suit. I am surprised to hear this as I thought it was made in Southeast Asia and they just imported it. If I wanted a different color they could get it completed earlier.

19 comments:

  1. Sorry Richard, I don't understand half of what your technobabble means but what I get is that your are on the road (um, snow) again. So, congrats to that.

    The first picture is definitely header worthy.

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    1. It was nice to be on the road/snow again! I must've spent about 16 hours over the last several days working on the bike. They definitely don't make them easy to work on. But it's all good and most of the annual maintenance is now completed.

      It really was a beautiful sunrise this morning (10:30am).

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  2. Richard:

    your new Stator is very robust, looks very heavy duty with the large copper wire windings.

    I think it is normal for your system to pump higher amps to "top up" your battery after an overnight start and then the Amps settle down to normal. This is what my car does as I have an actual gauge and not just an idiot light. If I turn on the car without starting I can check the initial voltage with a decimal readout

    you must feel good now that you have enough power to turn everything on, without worrying about draining your battery

    Now you can install those driving lights you were eyeing

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast

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    1. It's still lower capacity than most modern bikes but it works for me. It is nice to not have to worry about running the battery down. And the starter spins faster too. Maybe a little grease there as well as cleaning up the wiring helped a little.

      No plans for driving lights (yet!) as I'm satisfied with the headlight and LED fog lights.

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  3. Sounds like a successful upgrade! At idle, my 700watt system on the Ural displays 12.5 or thereabouts....when moving, its at 14.5. :)

    Turns out the V-Strom's 400W might be anemic, or it could be I need a new battery....holding off on that one for now.

    Congrats Richard.....job well done.

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    1. Charge at low rpm is great. Now I don't have to be concerned about running the battery down while going through the university or slow traffic. The V-Strom 400 watts sound perfectly adequate or is it only at higher rpm?

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  4. Every successful completion is a job well done. It is even better when the results are so positive. Hopefully my parts will arrive tomorrow and Wednesday and I can be finished in time to ride Saturday.

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    1. I like positive results (a little pun there). I'm looking forward at riding through the week. How does it feel not to have weekends?

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  5. re the v-strom....jury is out. It seems fine the first 30 min but once I get into city traffic, and at stoplight, it appears power drops enough to engage the auto-cutoff on the heat controller. My theory is that the battery just not charging fast enough....must attach voltmeter for next time.

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    1. Mine did the same before though it was considered "normal" for an airhead. According to Snowbum the actual output of the stock alternator at idle is only 2.5amps. So the battery will run down pretty quick at idle with the headlight on.

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  6. I think with the Aerostich the off the rack standard sizes are made in Asia, but the custom ones are all done in house - I think.

    Glad you are back up and running and on three wheels. Our fog broke yesterday afternoon and we got some yard work done. Thought maybe a ride today but it is foggy again. Had a few days off while the boss is in Mexico, back to work tomorrow.

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    1. I'm probably going to call Aerostitch today and see what the other color options are. For me it was a toss up whether to go with the hi-viz with grey or the grey with hi-viz.

      Nice to have a couple of days off but still stuck with the fog. Does it ever burn off during the day?

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  7. I cannot justify a thousand bucks for a Roadcrafter in my climate but you should have had one years ago. Modern electrics are things of wonder, reliable and long lasting. The best changes in motorcycles are in the electricals, which stranded more motorcyclists than anything else. That's progress.

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    1. It was nice having the car battery in the sidecar as it was absolutely no problem getting home after the alternator failure. Plenty of capacity to keep the lights and the engine running. Even the heated gear.

      I ordered a Roadcrafter Light after several recommendations from other year around riders in cold and warm climates.

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  8. Richard,

    Glad you are back on 3!

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    1. Thank you! It really seems to make a difference to me...

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  9. Given my recent issues with the battery being drained on my Bural....I looked up your posting again. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being very difficult, where would you rate the difficult level of this upgrade? In the meantime, I've installed a headlight switch and a quick disconnect for the wire that powers the big sidecar light the PO put in.

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    1. Maybe 2. It's a pretty straight forward installation with more parts coming out than went back in.

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