Bike died at traffic light
 

My wife and I decided to ride to breakfast this morning. We had to jump the bike to get it going because the battery was a little low. Once it was running it seemed fine. We took it about 2.5 miles and stopped at a couple of lights. At the last light we made it to, the bike just died. The battery was still low enough that I couldn't restart it. I've had this issue fairly recently in a parking lot. We got to where we were going and I was maneuvering in the lot in first gear. I pulled the clutch in and the bike died. The battery was charged enough that I just kept the clutch in and hit the starter button and it came back to life.

I'm pretty bad to the battery on this thing, unfortunately. The bike doesn't get ridden a whole lot so I've had trouble keeping the battery charged. It's tempting to put some kind of float charger on, but what if it keeps the battery topped off and lets me get miles and miles from home and then decides not to work?

I'm doubting this is a battery problem anyway since the bike should be making enough power to charge the battery and run itself, right? Could this be the dreaded RR failure? I'm going to try to do some diagnosing as soon as I can but the temp in my garage is climbing rapidly, so any help/advice as to what to look for would be great.

Most likely your problem will be in your RR or your stator. I've had some of the same issues with mine. If you have a multimeter you can get the bike running and see what kind of voltage you are getting out of te RR.

Stator checks out per the manual's test. The battery is low. I had it on the charger for a couple hours to bring it up. I'm not sure if it's good or not, but it's not dropping voltage fast like you'd see with a shorted cell. It is sitting at 12.4V now. My ignition off load is ~0.5mA, so a little high. I couldn't find the source of that drain. The charging voltage at idle is ~13.5V. At 5000 RPM I get ~12.9V. Seems like the RR is toast. It looks like the stocker and the bike does have about 30k on it.

Get a battery tender they are worth there weight in Gold! My hawk stays plugged in all of the time now!

If the charging voltage drops as the rpm climbs then the RR is definetly toast...
It should be closer to 14V over all the off idle rpm band...

Mine reads 14.2 at idle and drops when the revs goes up to about 13.5, weird things, but the battery stay strong, may be the nature of the beast, I suppose that the ignition drain a lot of power and the voltage may fall as the revs goes up, or it's sick as well ?!?

Well generaly 13.5-14.5V is "normal".... and small fluktuations are also normal... but in general I'm suspicios when it drops...

Normaly the stator puts out some 60-70V over each coil at revs and that climbs with revs so if the RR drops it's output either there is significantly added drain or something else is amiss.... the RR usualy has conductivity problems leading up to either loss of conductivity resulting in the RR overheating or the opposite, increased conductivity through the diodes resulting in a complete shortcircuit where fuses and battery takes the hit...

The first being the desirable malfunction as it drops the charge, the latter being a definete "no fun" as it overcharges something insanely... Boiling batteries and burnt ECU's are among the possible results...

It seems you have the first, less dangerous one... So in your case it's probably not a problem... it's just an ageing RR... but if the drop is growing then it's a tell tale sign that it might become one...

Keep an eye on it while doing your normal services and you will defintly see if it's beginning to be a problem in good time...

Your issue is very similar to what I'm experiencing on my bike. I've been living with it since the day I got the SH a yr ago. Get a battery tender for $40. It's totally worth the money.

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...4&postcount=22


My stator output is in spec, so I thought it had to be the R/R. I have an R1 unit but didn't get the chance to install it. However my stock R/R passes the diode test described in the user's maual. So I'm not 100% sure that it's the cause of the issue. I'll find out when I'll give it a try this week.

I didn't see a RR diode test in my Honda shop manual. How does that one go?

basicly a multimeter with the capabilty to test a diodes conductivity in different directions...

Between which leads? I've got two DMM's that can do that. :D

Lookie here... http://www.electrosport.com/technica...ding-guide.php

complete step by step instruction...:D

Ah-ha! I didn't see anything like the "C" test in my Honda manual. Interesting. I'll give that a shot to confirm.

So does anybody know FOR SURE what regulator(s) will work as a repalcement? I see R1/R6 everywhere, but when I go looking, the R1 regulators I find are $170-220 for current model years. There's an R6 (YZFR6V) regulator that is also used on the FZ6 (YFZR6V). That one runs about $72 new. Then there's one for the R6S (YZFR6SV) that is about $92. Is your head spinning yet? Mine is.

I can't tell you what years of the top of my head but older model r1/r6 1999 and similar when they where still carbed and not FI will work... regardless of designation... Current one's will NOT work...

I'm thinking it's the ones for $ 72/92...

I installed a 2006 R6 r/r on my '98 and it has been working great for over 4 months now. The '06 r/r has a 6-pin plug but only uses 5 of the pins just like the Hawk(and the same pins, top middle is not used). I checked the wiring/electrical schematic for the R6 to make sure. I also installed a voltage gauge and it has been keeping a perfect charge, running and parked.

Confirmed. It's the RR. Testing by using the "C" page of Electrosport's troubleshooting guide, where I should have ~0.5V I have more like 1.3V for all three.

Thanks for the tips on the replacement regulator. I may just get a new one if it's the $72 one. BikeBandit had a discount if you're an AMA member too, so that'll knock off a couple $$.

On a somewhat related note, has anyone tried the HarborFreight version of the battery tender? I think they're ~$10. I bought one to float my Jeep's battery while it has been out of comission, but never hooked it up. I wonder if it might work for the bike.

I've been using a R/R off a Hayabusa '99-07 with no problems. It's the same that's used on the GSXRs. There is a part number cross reference on the Ron Ayres website. www.ronayers.com

I'm going to give Honda the benefit since I'm still a little confused on which of the R6 models to use. The new version of the Honda unit has fins and a higher potential power output. If my notorious stocker lasted over 30k miles I'll risk it with a new one with better specs for about the same price (found a deal too! :D)

The finned Honda one is improved but it does sometimes still die. You can usually get it cheap on Ebay though, it is the same as the CBR F2-F4 (just not the F4i) and any 5 pin regulator from any MFG can be used if wired up right.

Well that's not it. I got the new Honda R/R and checked it the same way I did the old one. Apparently my multimeter is out of spec! It reads ~1.4V on each test that should get ~.5V. I plugged the new one in since I couldn't find anything else obviously wrong and it gives me ~13.7V at idle and ~12.5V at 5k RPM. Did I get a brand new bad one?

SOOO , did u get a new -bad one or what ?

I'm still not sure. I haven't had much of a chance to check into it further. Just thinking about it and talking to people it seems like the battery might be shot. It seems odd though that it will hold a charge for quite a while. I need to see what it does with a load though. I've been having too much fun on my new (to me) v-twin bike... :)

So the battery was as charged as I could get it a couple of weeks ago. I took the charger off to see how much voltage it would lose. It was dropping a couple tenths every day or so. Last night I checked it and it was down to ~12.1V. It started the bike fine. The charging voltages were still the same (with the new RR). The coil voltages seemed low. I was reading ~8.5V on each. They're consistent at least. I don't know if that's from the load of a bad battery plus running all the electronics on the bike or if my stator might be bad. Actually, I need to try this with my other DMM because I'm not sure I trust the one I was using, now that I've thought about it some more. The battery is pretty old, so maybe that'll be the next thing to replace.

It did get me to work this morning. I've been riding my new (to me) V-strom lately and the VTR is SUCH a different beast!

I used to battle with my RR and battery on my '98 SH. After 3 RR's and still some battery issues I replaced my stator and all my battery problems have gone away. A new stator was $100 to $200 and took less than an hour to install. I think I went with electrosport, which is linked above. my RR is the same brand.

Battery tender/minder will let you commute just fine, but when you go on a longer distance trip can leave you stranded. It did to me.