To all members,

I have been reading posts off this site for a few months now, and I have even been able to help somebody with their fuse problem:-) I think it is great that you all actually take time out of your day to help each other and now I am requesting your help..........

I purchased "Sheila" late last year in anticipation of moving to Naples, Italy. I could not take my second car so I transformed it into the beautiful bike you see in the images. It has about 35,000 miles and I am the third owner.

I believe that battery may not be in prime shape but I don't think it is unserviceable. The shipment from the states to here took about two and half months and the battery still started the bike when it arrived. I prepared her for the shipment by taking off the tank and completely draining her and letting it dry out completely before replacing it. The carbs where drained and I put a tablespoon of oil in each cylinder. She started right up and purred like a kitten when I started her.

I took her out and hit it a bit and no problems at all, I felt so good and everywhere I went heads turned and people pointed. She is beautiful, especially out here where I may have the only one. One thing I have to point out is that in Naples, the speed limits and driving laws are more of a guideline than law. So needless to say, I was able to experience fast riding and not worry about cops at all!!!!! So I did....... (safetly ;-) but I never red lined her. The fastest I went was no more than 130 and not more than for a few seconds. Mostly I would cruise between 80 and 90.

I was riding home from work and had to stop at a crossing and I waited for about 3 to 4 minutes and when I was able to go, the bike stalled on me... just quit. I pulled over and I got a jump and the bike acted like it was running out of gas, I would put on some throttle and it bogged down and then would go. Then would bog down again. I tried to get as close to the base as I could get and the pushed it the rest of the way.

I took the battery out and recharged it and read up a bit on how the battery is charged. I started her, she started right up and revved the engine to 3000rpm and 5000rpm and there was no voltage difference at all compared to idle. I did notice that she did not sound the same. I heard a different noise under the front fairings. I took off the little fairings with a screw driver and could not pinpoint the sound, except that it was under the front (big) fairings. I do not know what I have to charge the battery an alternator something else.

I will be searching the site looking for tips and I am posting this before doing so just to pick your brains a bit. I used to be a diesel mechanic in the Marines and I still can wrench a bit, I am currently a Electronics Technician in the Navy and I know electricity and schematics. I am going to do some more research to find out exactly what kind of electrical system she has. I will not let her die..... she needs to live, just look at her, she is beautiful. I need tips and suggestions where to start. CBR Classic, I need you....

Very Respectfully,

Alan Carlton

 

Sounds like your charging system is down. I had a CB900F that had the charging coil go out. Same symptoms you describe. Havn't had that problem with the CBR. It was an easy fix to replace the coil on the 900. I don't know about the CBR though.

 

2 things

when the coils are going and they get hot, they behave that way or

checks the wires that leads to the coils, i had a similar problem, thought it was the right side coil it turned out of of the wires that connected to the coil was broken, just hanging by the plastic wrapping, when it was cold the inside wire would touch, wiith the bike running for a while the plastic around the wire would expend and the core ( metal) would not connect , hence the bike was running on two cylinders and sounding like it is out of gas.

When it happens does it smells like unburnt gas, i'd so look for those two things.

tip: the wire tends to break where the bolts holding the tank in front are, there is a lof of shaffing there.

usually it takes five minutes to cure, but can take a while to find the fault!

Good luck

 

Good luck with Sheila!! my knowledge is very limited but definitely it's in great shape.

And moving her to Italy, man!! I envy you I heard they have some awesome twisty roads.

 

If the bike started right up after the problem, I would check two things
1 The battery for charge retention
2 The regulator/rectifier - If there's no change in the charge rate that's probably the villain.
A noise under the fairing could be the stator unit bearing.....start the bike and hold a screwdriver against the engine to isolate where the noise is coming from. The stator is on the lower left side of the engine, under the main fairing.
Good luck.

 

+1 on the regulator/rectifier.

 

I am going to go and troubleshoot today. I will keep you all posted and let you know what the problem is.

 

I took a good look at her yesterday. The R/R looks to be in good shape not melting or major discoloration of the plug. The service manual says to check the charging coil resistance of the alternator and it should be between 0 and 1.0 Ohms. My resistance between my leads is .2 and my total reading was 4 to 4 ohms. I also checked the resistance at the alternator plug located front left under the fairing. I read it at .5 ohms there. The manual goes into reistance checks and to make sure your meter meets certain requirement. I used a Fluke 77 in good repair. As the bike was running I checked at the R/R inline across the three yellow wires for A/C. I received a .6 vac across the three no matter which I tested them. I think I may have a bad alternator I am not sure if I tested correcly. The bike sounds great while running it with jumpers attached to a car while it was running and supplying 14.4 vdc to the battery, it sounded like a champ. How difficult is it to swap out an alternator, I have it parked in a garage and will have to do the work their out of my trunk.

 

Firstly it's called a stator on a bike (alternator is for cars)]
ALSO : NEVER start the bike with a jump from a running car - it has been known to fry your CDI unit
It's not the whole stator that you need, just the cover, which has all the electrics in it.. They pop up on e-Bay now and again, or you can spend about 215 US at www.mrcycles.com.
1 Remove left side fairing
2remove clutch slave unit and speedo drive.

The stator is held on by 3 bolts.
Careful when you remove it
1 It has an oil seal against the engine
11 Lever it straight or it'll crack
111 There's a bearing inside the stator cover.

There's oil inside the cover - it runs wet.

Sounds like your field coil has fried - mine did the same, and had similar symptoms.
Should take about an hour to do - biggest problem is rerouting the wires, which can be a pig !
If you need more help, PM me.

 

Honda calls it an alternator, at least in the US. I haven't had mine apart, but an alternator usually has 2 main components- the rotor and the stator.