TOPIC:

If you have a good healthy battery and charging system you will have no bother, unless you are at constant low speed with lights on and using more juice than you are making...............
If this is the case....................suggest you sell the 1300, as it was never made to be used like that anyway !!!!!!

I always fit a fan switch that comes in at 95 Degrees, and have not had a problem under regular normal use (on 11 x Z1300's over 40 years)

Pete F
UK

By the way, I had a look in the manual to see how much current the fan motor draws but can’t find anything.


With three set of leads you can test everything on a 1300. "Bananas" on all three for the meter. Male/female bullets on the opposite end for one. M/F "Spades" on the second. In my case, I fitted an 8 circuit "Blade-fuse" fuse box so made the third set of leads with an end that plugs into each fuse circuit.


These were my results:

These were my results

Hi Scotch,

Thanks for doing this. Surprising how many amps the fan motor pulls when the fan first kicks in. The bike has a Motobatt battery installed and the last time I checked charging rate and voltage were ok. Bike won’t be getting used now til March but I’ll be sure to post any issues if I have any problems with charging due to the fan being on most of the time. Might opt for a LED headlight to reduce the load on the system.

Regards

Martin.

I have a Sylvania Nite Hawk sealed beam 55/65w headlight. Plus a 55w halogen driving light relayed off the high beam. I ride on High beam ALL the time ! ( No way some asshole can claim he didn't see me !) All the bulbs in the instrument cluster are LED's. The "idiot" lights are the OEM bulbs. The custom tail-piece which accommodates the solo-seat, has LED Tail/ brake light. Signals are still conventional bulbs. LED's on all four wouldn't work even with a "LED" compatible flasher. Was using two LED's on the front (the flasher would then work), but the light output was disappointing. Like most; fuel solenoid was removed long ago so no power loss there. Just installed a "High Output" (?) stator feeding a SH847 Regulator charging a "run of the mill" Walmart battery. Don't believe this makes any difference but will mention my Ignition coil is a G.M., using the Ballast resistor. Never have to use the fan on the highway but do manually turn it on in "slow" traffic and I usually leave it on until I'm outta town ! Have a 5.5 volt voltage reducer to run a small video camera. Still using the factory Thermostat and fan sensor switch. Never had a need to question the specs or consider playing around with different temp. settings.. Other then these details the electrical is original. No issues with the battery being too low to run the bike or to start it after a stop somewhere.
You can't do much about the stator output. It is what it is depending on the make. Same with the voltage regulator, to a point. Can't say whether the newer V/R's are more energy efficient then the OEM.
Best I can offer is to suggest you ensure every electrical connection is clean, for the best conductivity. Perhaps measure the A/C output of the stator, again to be confident that the problem isn't at the source. The type / cost of of your battery shouldn't be an issue or concern , particularly if the battery is new but don't rule out a "bad" battery.
Sometimes you get a dud !

As the fan is probably going to be on more than it’s off and the possible consequences of discharging the battery I’ve decided to install as many LED’s as possible. I already had LED’s for the instrument lights and opted for blue in colour. They are far brighter than the standard bulbs and gives a nice blue glow to the instrument panel which I can actually see, on the rare occasions, when I go out on the bike at night.

The next job was the stop/taillight bulbs. I fitted two of these and again are much brighter than the standard bulbs. eBay item number 223816272807.

The next thing I looked at was the headlight. Now I was going to go down the route of changing the H4 headlight bulb for a LED type but decided to go with this instead. eBay item number 313256099528.

What I wasn’t sure of is how this light would fit into the existing headlight chassis so took a chance thinking how hard can it be. The main problem is there is no brackets on the new light to secure it to the chassis. There isn’t a bracket for the headlight adjuster either. The main brackets are from some brackets used to suspend house light from the ceiling.

Took some measurements and bent these to shape as required. Another good reason not to throw things away. I had to drill a small hole in the headlight shell, where I was going to fix the brackets, making sure sure it didn’t go all the way through as I wasn’t sure if there was any components behind the shell. Turns out there isn’t. I then had to make a bracket for the headlight adjuster which I secured with J-B Weld.

Hopefully this will reduce the load on the generator. Just got to fit it now and test it out. The only other concern is the LED logo on the headlight lights up red when running the daylight driving light. This won’t be connected for U.K. MOT purposes.

mizztheman wrote: Hopefully this will reduce the load on the generator.

'Reducing the load' on the OEM alternators in these bikes doesn't actually reduce the load as the alternator output is fixed (for any given RPM). Any excess power over what's required to charge the battery and run the ignition, lights and fan (and any accessories) is simply shunted to ground through the R/R. Having said that, since your fan is more likely to be on when moving slowly (or stopped) - i.e. when the alternator output is lower, the power freed-up by using LED's may help offset more frequent fan use.

I think some of the guys here have switched their R/Rs to the series type which would better manage a 'load reduction'.