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I replaced both my stator and rectifier several years ago with after market and both failed within about 2 years.
re-fitted the oem stator and bought a replacement rectifier from Oregon Cycle Parts. This guy makes most of his own stuff.
I get 14.8 volts just off idle and in the low 13's with headlight light on and fan running. I also run heated vest and gloves, tho' generally not with the engine fan on.
In my case I found nothing wrong with the oem stator in spite of a lot of chatter about needing the second stator that some later models came with.
It was the rectifier/regulater that gave me all the power I need.

680 Odyssey battery.



www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/

tackelhappy wrote: I replaced both my stator and rectifier several years ago with after market and both failed within about 2 years.
re-fitted the oem stator and bought a replacement rectifier from Oregon Cycle Parts. This guy makes most of his own stuff.
I get 14.8 volts just off idle and in the low 13's with headlight light on and fan running. I also run heated vest and gloves, tho' generally not with the engine fan on.
In my case I found nothing wrong with the oem stator in spite of a lot of chatter about needing the second stator that some later models came with.
It was the rectifier/regulater that gave me all the power I need.

680 Odyssey battery.



www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/

Nice Tackelhappy!! Glad to see some common sense prevail. Fix what's broke. Don't modify that which worked before.

In my old line of work we called this "Engineering Change Control" First we had to justify the "change" and that was almost impossible when the words "It worked great for a long time and now it doesn't". The only time we could reasonably make a change was when the required parts were no longer available and then we had to engineer the fix for the problem.

I on the other hand like to do the modifications just to see where I can take a project, but that being said, I exercise a lot of the facets of engineering change control including the COMS principal. C- constructability, can it be constructed. O- operability. Will it meet all the requirements of the previous design or better than. M- Maintenance. If it's built, will it be easily repaired if required and easy to maintain. And last but definitely not least S- Safety. If built and implemented will it be as safe or more save to operate and maintain than the previous design.

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C- constructability, can it be constructed. O- operability. Will it meet all the requirements of the previous design or better than. M- Maintenance. If it's built, will it be easily repaired if required and easy to maintain. And last but definitely not least S- Safety. If built and implemented will it be as safe or more save to operate and maintain than the previous design.

Outstanding philosophy KB

Getting 13.1volts to 13.5volts at my battery out of my regulator. after cleaning wire connections and using dielectric grease. 70 volts AC out of my stator. My bike died again today around the 5 mile mark. Battery got drained again. Ordered a rectifier from Oregon Motorcycle Parts.

rdbhere2 wrote: Getting 13.1volts to 13.5volts at my battery out of my regulator. after cleaning wire connections and using dielectric grease. 70 volts AC out of my stator. My bike died again today around the 5 mile mark. Battery got drained again. Ordered a rectifier from Oregon Motorcycle Parts.

Well I hope for your sake the Oregon rectifier fixes your problem, but it may not and if that happens, you've thrown good money away. The stator test and the rectifier/regulator test as outlined in the Service Manual are relatively simple to do and then you know what's going on. Right now you don't know what's happened and why you've got a charging circuit problem. You could even have a short circuit and then throw new parts in and blow them up too. It's electrical and until you know what's broke and WHY it broke you shouldn't be replacing anything. That's exactly why when you buy electrical parts from a supplier, there's no returning the parts. Too many people go about replacing THIS and it doesn't work, so they replace THAT and it doesn't work then they replace THE OTHER and that doesn't work. Then they get pissed and want their money back for all those parts they tried since non of them fixed the problem.

I realize these are hard thoughts to swallow and I really don't mean to be hard on you but there's a lesson here for a lot of people. Electrical problems are unique to machinery issues and they need a specific approach to repairing them. Diagnosing is critical and you must understand what happened just as much as what's broke and needs replacing.

I had to learn this lesson the hard way too. I have a 1985 Porsche 928 so it's 30 years old. I failed to disconnect the battery one fall when I was putting it away for the winter. When I went to start it in the spring the battery was dead because the clock was running all winter and discharged the battery. Not knowing any better I just grabbed my truck and hooked up a set of booster cables between the Porsche and the truck. I left the truck running to give it that little extra umph. The Porsche fired up and within a couple of seconds it was running like shit and backfiring out the exhaust. I couldn't keep it running unless it was running over 3000 rpm and backfiring like there was no tomorrow. Then I smelt something burning like hay or something. Turned out the catalytic converters were glowing white hot and burning the grass under the car and the undercoating was now on fire. SHIT !!!! grabbed the garden hose and started putting out the fires and trying to save my baby. What the hell happened.

The 2 charging circuits were trying to regulate the combined outputs of the 2 charging systems and apparently there was a surge in voltage outputs which fried 1 of the 2 computers. Tried to find a used computer at a wreckers and the cheapest I could find was $3,000. Eventually I managed to find a guy in Arizona who rebuilt the computer for $400, but before I put that rebuilt computer in I had to understand what the hell happened since these old Porsche's are plagued with ground wiring issues which could have caused the same fault and frying computers. If you think finding parts for your old KZ's is a problem, try finding parts for an old Porsche. And if you do find what you need Gold won't buy it. It's nothing less than your first born.

Anyway, I hope you heed this advice for what it's worth and again, I'm not trying to dump on you but I fear your headed down a road you really don't want to go down.

Kawboy