'98 Hawk regulator/rectifier troubleshooting...
 

After pulling into the garage a few nights ago, I noticed a stream of smoke coming from the reg/rect unit, plus it was extremely hot to the touch. Did some checking this weekend with the multimeter and manual, noticed something wierd. 1st, the battery has no voltage, I'm assuming its fried. I did the Charging Coil Line test between the yellow wire terminals in the burnt plug, no resistance reading at all. All the other voltage test in that section check outs.

The R/R is a known weak point in these bikes. Replace it. Your options are to either get a newer OEM or aftermarket one that is a direct replacement or to upgrade to a Yamaha unit.

When mine died it took out the battery too, this means that yours is overcharging, do not ride with it in this condition, you could damage other things with the high voltage. (if you need to move the bike, put a fresh battery in and remove the R/R. You won't be charging the battery but you can run for a short distance this way)

Here is the Yamaha Swap instructions: https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=14380

If you want to get a aftermarket solution:

The cheapest will be off Ebay and look for one that has heatsink fins that lists the CBR600F3 as a compatible bike (the VTR is not a common enough bike that they always list it, but the F3 uses the same R/R). eg: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-H...WDVWQQtcZphoto

Also Electrosport makes one: http://www.electrosport.com/
And one of our members here (Circuit_burner) owns: http://www.motovoltage.com/ and while pricy, their R/Rs are the most feature rich and you know the person standing behind the company.

Thank you for the advice and links. Is there a chance that the stator might be damaged as well? My biggest confusion is testing the wiring plug harness that goes into the r/r and not the r/r itself, but that is what Honda has in the manual. I'm not much into vehicle electrics except audio and alarm systems.

Here is the guide Circuit_burner posted on testing the stator.. He makes it far easier than I could. https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=18792

At the R/R plug the 3 yellow wires are the stator wires, the other two, one is for ground the other for +12V.

Notice he says the resistance is .5 to 2 ohms.. If your Ohmmeter isn't set at it's lowest setting it will think there is no resistance there since that is such a small number.

One note I'd like to add though... if it's .5 or 2 ohm doesn't matter much (or even 2.5) as long as they are even... ie all around .5 or all around 2... If you have one at .5 and one at 2 it's not very good...