Light and Tach problem

[theonegod]

Yesterday when I started up my bike I noticed the tach wasn't working. The gass light and the neutral light would come on but the tach was doing nothing. That night I further noticed that the headlight and instrument lights were also not working. I checked the fuse box on the right side of the bike but they all appear to be fine. Is there anything that I can check that could have caused all these problems? Tail light works as does the rear turn signal. I would have to check to make sure the front turn signal works. I don't know for a fact that is does. The day before yesterday all this worked fine.

Bike is a 1980 XS11 special

[dragxs11]

I had these symptoms when my stator coil went out. You don't hear about that happening very often, but I helped it break by forgetting to bolt it down during reassembly. Your headlight and guage lights work off of the coil alone. Your break, and turn signals will work off of the batt. as well as the fuel and neutral lights. Hope that helps narrow it down for you.
Matt

[theonegod]

Stator coil? Hmm what would be involved in fixing that?

[theonegod]

Or even, how would I confirm that that stator coil is in fact the problem? And am i correct in assuming that if this is the case my battery is not charging as well?

[mitch]

Eazy test

Start her up let it idle, then dissconnect the neg terminal on the battery if it still runs its charging if not OH OH . Then you need some one other than myself to help you electrical is not my forte Good luck ..................MITCH

[theonegod]

Lol thkna will go on out and give that a try. God I hate taking the seat off. oh well cant get around it.

[dragxs11]

The coil doesn't like a great deal of vibration. Mine was bouncing around in the case and the damage was visible. Still I checked it with a meter. You should have resistance between all three coils, and none of them should be shorted to ground. You can measure this by disconnecting the harness under the gas tank that goes to the regulator. there should be four wires, I think all of them should be white. Should you need a new one, I was able to find one for $40 on a salvage parts network called riderparts.com. It would be nice if you just had a bad connection. Hope this helps.
Matt

[theonegod]

Well that checked out as a negative. IE on disconnecting the negative line the bike died. Soooo I guess I get to go out and buy a allan wrench set and take off the stator cover oh and buy an ohm meter to test it with. Anyone got a spare working stator coil sitting about for a 80 xs 11 special?

The only thing I did the night before that was out of the norm was that I DID rider it faster then normal for about a mile. Since buying it I had not really worked the gears and accelerated to see what it could really do. On the one hand my GOD is was fast excelleration. on the other it seems it may have caused this.

When you takl about the white wires.. are you refering to the 2 bundles that come off the coil housing and go behind the fuse box?

[skids]

I would hold off on disassembing the alternator until you check something. You said that the instrument light were out as well as your headlight and tach? The headlight relay and tach do operate from signals from the alternator, but the instrument lights do not. I suspect that you have a corroded ground connection...probably near the headlight bucket. To do a quick check of the alternator to see if the field coil is producing a magnetic field, run the bike and see if the right side alternator cover attracts iron. PS, for what its worth, the Clymers manuel claims that you should not run the bike with a terminal disconnected from the battery. Taking off the seat should become easy with practice! :-)

[theonegod]

Yeah I can take it off easy I just hate doing it. If what you are saying is true then what of the fact that disconnecting the negative made the bike turn off? Also i have a fairing if that makes any diff. With headlight built in. I am pretty sure (always cuold be wrong) that it isnt a ground problem though. I mean if it was would alll the other stuff still be working like it is? gass light, neutral light, oil light, blinker indicators.

So what you are saying is that if I run the bike for a couple minutes, and the right engine casing becomes magnetic. That the alternater and stator coil are working? I am getting confused.

[wildbill]

I have had the same problems with my bike in the past.What it was on my bike was either a dirty connection,short or a bad ground.It can be a real pain to track down but if it started doing this all at once more than likely thats what it is.You would have to remove the tank and trace your wires.Slow but it can be done. Good luck and hope this helps

[theonegod]

Would this also explain the bike turning off when i diconnect the negative pole on the battery as previously suggested?

[mitch]

Battery

Hey One ,
I told you im not real good with electrial , i just thought that if the system was charging it should run the bike with the battery disconnected. I might be wrong and i see one of the members said not to run it with the battery disconnected. Sooooo, i think we need somebody on the fourm with some knowledge of the system to chime in. That check always works for me on cars but maybe this system is different , sorry i was just trying to help and told you what i would do by the way my Venture Royal will continue to run with the battery unhooked, but the owners manual suggests not doing that as it may harm the charging system . Good luck.....MITCH

[Redbaron]

Electrical Problems

There are some very good articles here, about charging systems. Before tearing anything down look into these. My charging system is 100% better and I never pulled the stator housing. Search for charging system, or similar. Cleaning the connections and checking with an ohm meter fixed my problems. HTH

[skids]

Re: Electrical Problems

That is right, you do simple continuity tests at the stator's connector to check it. There is normally no need to pull the guts out.

The magnetic test is simply to see if the field coil is operating. If it is not, either the voltage regulator is not sending current to it, the field coil is bad, or you have a bad connection.

I am pretty sure that the headlight does not run directly from the alternator. Instead, the relay gets its signal from the alternator to switch on the current. The instrument illumination comes from the blue wires which come from the rectifier and battery as dc current (via the relay being turned on). Check out page 180 of the Clymers for reference. You did say you had a problem with the gage lighting, right? Again, the blue wires are switched on by the same relay.

The tach signal is sent directly from the alternator.

There are two possibilities that I can see. The same ground needed to run the tach and the lights is not continnuous, or, you have a problem with the signal from the alternator to close the switch in the relay. The later could be caused by a bad connection from that white wire, that wire shorted or open, a bad charging system, a bad relay, or a defective in-line diode (shown in Clymers on the colored electrical diagram.

I think I would bypass the diode and run a hot lead to the connector where the white wire feeds the relay. This should make the headlight come on as well as the gage lights. If it does not, I believe you have a bad ground that is common to both the tach and the lights.

Originally posted by Redbaron
I never pulled the stator housing. Cleaning the connections and checking with an ohm meter fixed my problems. HTH