Ok guys, basic question here.. I think. I've got a '98 600 F3 and I've been having a discharging problem. Its not been anything serious and its my daily driver so I've just been keeping it hooked to a battery tender every couple of days to top it off.

So I finally get around to getting a multimeter and do some tests. Battery checks out fine. About 12.5 volts with the ignition off, 13ish+ at 2-2.5k rpm and around 14 volts at about 5k rpm. Based on this, the guide I'm using says my charging system is fine. For kicks, I go to the RR next to compare readings to my service manual and as soon as I pull the wiring harness off I notice the top yellow wire is burnt to hell and surrounded by dark burnt plastic. I've stopped there and am under the impression I'll need to replace the harness. Now I'm on a budget and can't really afford to go buying a new RR that I don't need. I'm not sure if the burnt out wire is any indication of the bad RR or if its just a harness problem. So my question, has anyone experienced this or know about this kind of issue and can give me an idea of how to go about this? Should I just replace the harness and see how it goes? Should I get a new RR also? When I say harness, I mean just the plug but I'm seeing from the parts fische for my bike that it looks like it comes as one part. Does anyone know if I can just get the plug and splice it into the harness myself?

Any help would he HUGE!!

 

Been in your same shoes man. When I got my bike someone had thrown a jumper wire in my harness to get power directlly from the batter to the red black running up front to the gauges...maybe red white (cant remember). Anyways, I also had the starter yellow orange melted to that red black running up front and also noticed that that larger gauge red black wire was worn thru by the fairing stay where it bends around and I assumed that was the grounding that caused all the damage. I took a chance and just replaced the harness and kept the origianl RR. Picked the harness up used from another member or ebay or something for round $40 bucks. If you wait and watch you'll probably come across someone that will damn near give it away.

So, the bike has been thru a few rides last year and no dead batterys or other issues have come up as far as I know. Hope this helps, check that fairing stay spot I mentioned.

 

Well I've put this off for a few weeks now with a little troubleshooting here and there and I've taken a couple of steps. I've done some testing with the multimeter on the RR plug and have gotten normal readings. Checked the battery and is good. I am getting a cheap used f3 RR and a new (by new I mean cheap/used in good condition) wiring harness. I intend to splice in my new RR plug into the current wiring harness to eliminate the burnt wire.

I've done a lot of reading lately on the bike's electrical system and have a theory. At this point, I'm thinking that the previous owner of my bike either tried to jump the bike with a car that was running. Too much juice that the bikes RR tried to dump and couldn't handle and fried it. That or something else overcharged the system (maybe charging the battery with a 4 amp charger, who knows..) and the RR overheated or was otherwise overloaded.

So before I make these replacements I'd like to check whatever I can to make sure I don't have a bad component elsewhere thats going to fry my "new" RR and or RR plug. Obviously I'll want to check the stator. How would I do that? I feel pretty confident that I've inspected the harness and it is free of shorts beyond the original burnt connector I found. Can anyone tell me anywhere else to look before I connect my new components? Any help or suggestions on preventive check would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Did you even read above?

 

Yes...

Trying to find out how to go about checking my stator before I install the RR and RR plug and see if anyone else has a suggestion on things to check before I install the new RR.

As I said, and I'll clarify, I checked the harness for shorts and found nothing odd and there doesn't appear to be anything non-OEM spliced into the bike's wiring harness. I appreciate the help though.