another charging system failure

[AndyM]

Just when I thought everything was good I got another failure. Went to work this afternoon and everything was fine. 14.5v. Came home for lunch and it drops to 13.5. Then 12.7. Then 12.4 at speed and 11.9 at idle.
I pull in to my garage and the connector from the stator to the regulator is burnt on the stator side. Toasted.

Any idea if this would be a stator failure or a regulator failure? I haven't pulled it apart yet to look. This is with a rick's stator and a triumph regulator.
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[Stretch]

Replace them both at once, bro.  I went back and forth with replacing one and then the other, going through two stators and two RR's before I finally replaced them both at once, and it "took".  The dead stator may have been caused by a shorted RR or vise-versa.  And putting a new stator in with the (possibly damaged) RR might fry the new stator.  Just be done with it and do them both at the same time.  The replacement parts are so inexpensive, that you can replace both for less than the cost of just one of the Triumph components.

If you haven't already read German's thread on the subject...  http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,5163 (http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,5163)

Also, make sure the body of your new RR is grounded straight to the Negative Battery Terminal.  Just make a short pigtail out of 10-gauge wire and a couple ring terminals...


Here's one end of the pigtail, under the RR mounting bolt.  Your RR won't look like this.  I made a new bracket that allows the RR to be removed and replaced by simply removing the left side panel.

[AndyM]

Replace them both at once, bro.  

Also, make sure the body of your new RR is grounded straight to the Negative Battery Terminal.  Just make a short pigtail out of 10-gauge wire and a couple ring terminals...

.

Been there done that. Replaced both the stator and reg about a month ago. Twice.
Electrosport failed right away, Rick's took a month to fail. Just checked and the three legs of the regulator are shorted to each other. Brand new regs with each.

Don't know why you would want to ground the case of the reg. It doesn't ground through the case, just through the wires coming out of it.

[Stretch]

You can't have too much ground.  I once had a Volkswagen GTI that ate alternators.  Every couple weeks I was putting a new alternator on it.  After the third one, the parts guy told me to run a heavy ground wire from the body of the alternator to the Negative Battery Terminal.  I did, and never had another minute's trouble with the alternator.

By grounding the body of the RR, it may run cooler and last longer.  I did everything I could to get my Tiger's charging system better than new... cleaning every connection, using dielectric grease on every connection and terminal, Sasquatch's voltage mod with very short 10-gauge wires, etc.  The ground pigtail is cheap, so why not?

BTW, I forgot that you were one of the contributors in German's thread, mentioned above.  Sorry about that.

[AndyM]

Somewhere I've got pics of the Triumph, Rick's, and Electrosport stators lined up next to each other. The Triumph is by far the beefiest of the bunch. maybe that's why it lasted 70k and the others crap out.

[Stretch]

I still have the Triumph stator that I replaced on the side of a country road.  I was thinking about having it rewound, but a new one from Rick's is only a bit more, and comes with a one-year warranty.

I hope you get it ironed out.  I know how frustrating it is, believe me.

[AndyM]

I still have the Triumph stator that I replaced on the side of a country road.  I was thinking about having it rewound, but a new one from Rick's is only a bit more, and comes with a one-year warranty.

I hope you get it ironed out.  I know how frustrating it is, believe me.

I also still have my original and have found a place to rewind it ~40 miles from my house. Will be calling ricks in the morning to replace theirs under warranty and might get the original rewound as a backup.
I'm heading to Death valley at the end of the month. i'm just glad it crapped out now instead of then.

[Stretch]

For real.  I have a couple-thousand mile trip coming up in March, and will be buying a Rick's 'stator and RR set' to have along as spares.  Having a trip killed for want of a cheap part and one-hour repair sucks mucho ass.

[AndyM]

I've done this enough now that I've got it down to well under an hour  :lol:

I'm beginning to wonder if the cheap parts aren't part of the proble. The expensive Triumph parts lasted 70k miles.

[Stretch]

Mine lasted 24,000.  Who knows...?

[Kiwi Tiger]

Just thinking.  I may do the Earth thing before it craps out. It may save me a lot to grief by the sound of it.