battery won't charge

[Real Deal]

My 86 1200 Aspencade won't charge the battery. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[virgilmobile]

Many of us have worked on the Goldwing charging systems.
Your gonna need a Digital volt meter,about $15,to do it yourself.
The system is split into 2 major parts for testing.
The stator and the regulator.
What info do you want first?testing or the mechanics of it.

[Real Deal]

I found the problem, it was a lose wire near the voltage regulator.

[virgilmobile]

Glad you found it.
What wire was it?
Even a picture is OK.

[Kamerons1120]

So I bought a 86 Goldwing and I had it up to date, I recently put a brand new battery in the bike 2 days ago and every time I want to go start it I need a jump, when I’m in am idle I go to check the voltage on my Bluetooth adapter and it’s reading 8.7V and I don’t know what the problem is can anyone give me any advice on what is possible that could be wrong so I can save money and don’t have to put a tone of money into fixing it atca honda motorcycle shop

[virgilmobile]

The first thing is to check for obvious trouble areas.
3 yellow wires(the plug) next to the battery for burnt/corroded connections..
Do the same for the regulator module plug.All those connections must be tight and corrosion free.
Near the regulator is the ground bolt(green wires)..it'd also suspect for corrosion.
After this comes the need for a volt meter for testing.

[dthorntonministries]

Those three yellow wires go to the stator. Look closely at the plug, if it still has a plug on it, and see if there is any evidence of getting hot and melting the plastic plug. If this is happening, the most common fix is to eliminate the plug and solder the ends of each of the pairs together and tape them so they won't get together.

One way to check the stator is to measure the resistance across each of the wires. If the resistance is approximately the same, the stator is probably ok. If one of them is drastically different from the other two, you probably have a problem in the stator.

Take the plug, with the three yellow wires, apart. You want to work with the side of the plug that goes back into the large round cover at the rear of the engine. That is where the stator is located.

Put your meter on Ohms, 10K will work. Put the negative probe (black) on one of the yellow wires. While holding it there, touch the red probe to each of the other two wires and see if the meter measures about the same. Then move the black probe to another wire and measure the other two with the red probe. Then move the black probe to the third wire and so on until you've measured all three. If any one of the wires shows a big difference from the others, the stator is the problem. If they measure approximately the same, the stator is ok.

If the stator checks out ok, check the sides of the plug where the wires go into the plug, to see if they look like they've been hot. If so, you may have to much load on your charging system. If you have extra lights, etc., you may want to consider limiting their use.. The wiring in the charging system on the 1200s is too light to carry much extra load and will heat the wires coming from the stator and melt the plug until the wires make contact. At that point, the stator will usually open up or melt the wires on one phase and it will no longer put out the correct voltage to the battery.

If the stator checks out, the problem may be the voltage regulator. that is a whole nother post.

If the stator is the problem, just know that the stator cannot be changed without the enging being rotated in the frame so that the large round cover at the back, clears the frame. It is a major job and should not be attempted unless you are very mechanically inclined. I've done it twice. The first time I took the engine out of the frame. The second time, I found a way to just rotate it enough to get the cover off. It takes about 15 minutes to change the stator, but it takes several hours to get to that point.
Be blessed, DT