Hello, I am new to the forums and to riding in general. I have a 1987 CBR600F that has a bad rectifier. I have ordered a new one but I don't know if it is going to arrive in time for a ride I was planning on taking this Saturday. The ride will be about 1 hr one way, long break for lunch and fun, then approx. 1 hr back.

Here's the question: How horribly bad would it be to either:

A) Ride without the rectifier hooked up?

or

B) Ride with the rectifier hooked up, even though its not doing anything.

I'm also new to playing mechanic so I'm not sure of the ramifications of running without a functioning rectifier.

I plan to trickle charge the bike during lunch, if its even safe to ride it.

Thanks for your time, this is a really nice forum for a newbie and CBR rider.

 

I wouldn't ride that long without the rectifier. It causes your coil to work off of just your battery alone. You will run fine for about 30 minutes according to my recent experience, and then your bike will gradually run worse as the voltage on your battery drops then die. If you do decide to chance running like that, unplug your stator, as a bad rectifier could make your stator go bad. You don't want to replace that also.

 

Thanks for the info. I guess I will just have to hope that the rectifier comes in time and that it was the actual problem.

 

I have a post on here from last week on how to check it, one of the guys were nice enough to send it to me and it diagnosed my problem. My rectifier was fried and my wiring was bad causing it to fry. I will post a link to the topic.

 

Here is one
http://www.offwidth.co.uk/bike/gener...lt_finding.pdf

And this is the one he gave me that I used to diagnose mine
http://cbrworld.net/forums/post/140473.aspx

 

To diagnose the problem we used a Chilton's manual and ran all of the tests that it gave for the charging system. The battery tested fine. The battery leakage test was the first one that gave a bad reading. It was showing that with the switch off and the RR plugged in it was pulling full voltage from the battery. With the RR unplugged it dropped to 0 (as the manual said it should). One of the resistance tests gave bad results also. I haven't gone to the trouble of pulling the stator off to test it (that's what the book recommended) b/c I don't want to do all that work for nothing.

Maybe the rectifier is the real problem and this will be a relatively painless fix.

Thanks for the info, you guys are fast to respond!

 

Don't worry about pulling the stator out for testing, you can test it from the plug running from it. I don't know where that is on your '87, but on my '98 the plug is right next to the battery. Just follow the wire from the stator cover up and you should find it no problem. Start the bike and put your voltage tester to AC 200, and check your voltage by testing each combination of 2 wires. Mine pulled 18v at idle and over 40v at 5k+ RPMs. Just remember, the electricity coming from the stator is AC at this point, it doesn't change to DC until after the rectifier. You can also check the stator at the plug going into the rectifier.

 

So, the rectifier I had on order from bikebandit is apparently backordered until 6/22. Anybody know where I could pick one up sooner than that? Like before next weekend.

 

you can check ronayers.com

 

Ok, I'm stumped now. Using the chart that cogs69 linked to for diagnosing the problem I am showing that I am not having a problem with the rectifier or the stator. However, I am not getting over 13.5V no matter what the engine speed. The battery is brand spankin new, put it on the charger overnight to make sure it was full and its still at 13.4V. Has this battery already gone bad?! Or could there be something else that I am not catching. I am getting 50VAC on all 3 yellow wires coming from the stator. And all of the other numbers from the tests are within spec. BAH!!!!! I hate electrical problems.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!