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Issue with 07 charging system?

Gen 2: 2006-07 
1K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  Uncle Snake 
#1 ·
Yo until Yesterday the bike ran perfectly. Today I loaded it up and drove it 1200km through a pretty bad ass storm that lasted 30 mins. Rain came down hard. Hours later I unloaded it and road it 20 mins before she just died.I wonder if the water did something.

2007 zx10r 26k km. Fresh service. New oil ect. Battery is over 2 years. It's getting a load test tomorow. Bike purred like a lion. It runs really well. Until today. The first problem I've ever had and it was sudden. There weren't any issues leading up to it. Except maybe, it felt like a week battery once the other day for one turn over. I shrugged it off.

Felt like a dead battery at first but now I'm not so sure.

The HUD went first. While riding. Just went blank. Had turn signals. Threw the light switch and I could feel power loss. Like it was running off the battery alone.
Turned the switch back to low and I could feel it regain a little power.

Wife turned around and we jump started it. No problem fired up. Engine was running strong. No power loss. A few minutes later the HUD went dark again. Then the engine stalled a few mins later. Loaded it back in the truck and now I'm sulking. Because it's day 1 of my vacation.

The engine is Clicking like a dead battery. Not enough power to turn over. Weak fuel pump. Wait a few mins and the pump sounded stronger but there wasn't enough juice to turn it over.

On another note. I noticed an FI next to the oil light when I got my HUD back. Maybe an error code the ECM threw at me because she died mid stride?

Can someone point me in the right direction?

I'm pulling the battery first thing.
Which is 2 years old. I really hope it's not the stator. I'm new to my own maintenance. But I do have a full service manual and I've worked on engies a lot. Just not motorcycles.

I've never had these symptoms before. I've never had a HUD go blank and then die at 130km an hour.
 
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#3 ·
Yep, it's ya stator, definitely the first thing to check. The Stator was probably the first thing I had to replace when I got mine. Died on the way home in a rain storm, then stranded in the middle of no where at night, 2 lane backroad. No street lights, sketchy as hell lol.

It is a common issue with these Generations. Easy fix though.

Like GreenOne stated, definitely get the service manual and do the tests.

When I did the tests my stator was definitely fried but my rectifier was still good BUT I've been having issues where the cluster will reset intermittently, another member on the board stated they replaced their rectifier which cured the issue. I think I'll be tearing mine down soon to run the tests on the rectifier again.
 
#4 · (Edited)
What they are saying is true. Stator is definitely the first thing to check. The service manual tells how to do it. I start by just seeing if it's charging to begin with by putting a meter across battery terminals and see what she is putting out. If you are only seeing around 12V, you know it's not charging and you have an issue with either your stator or regulator/rectifier. Most likely stator, in my opinion. Hell, mine went at 12k miles.

Here: https://www.zx-10r.net/forum/f23/how-far-battery-alone-342794-2.html you can see my stator after 12k miles. Pretty burnt up. I'd say you are luck you made it this long.

There are also some discussions there about replacements. The Genuine Kawasaki one is downright outrageous in price. There are several other options out there if you look in a variety of price ranges. I ended up with the RM.
 
#5 ·
I'll add my opinion on this, but it matches the others here also.

The battery is used for starting the engine only. Once it starts, the alternator provides power to the motor and recharge the battery. The alternator consists of a stator coil and magnetic rotor. The crank spins the magnet inside the stator windings to produce a variable alternating current. From there, it needs to be rectified to direct current and capped to a certain voltage. Hence the regulator/rectifier is the other component in the system.

The telltale sign for an alternator problem is that the bike dies while running. That means the alternator isn't providing the needed power and the whole bike is running off battery power all the time until it loses charge and the bike dies off in parts. First thing to go is the instrument cluster. :wink:

You've got a charging problem. Either your stator is bad or your rectifier went bad. You need to check both of those things and troubleshoot which has failed. In some cases when one goes out, it takes the other with it depending on how/why it failed. In most cases, only one of those are bad. Replace the bad piece, charge up the battery, and you'll be back on two wheels!
 
#6 · (Edited)
As opposed to starting a new thread.....

I pulled my '06 out yesterday after a 10 month nap. It fired up and idled normally so I rode around the building and parked it while I suited up. The bike had ran for 5-7 minutes at idle when I shut it off as the cooling fan had come on and I was still 5 minutes from leaving. When it was time to go I hit the starter button and it turned over twice and quit. Key off. Key on. Hit button and same thing. One more try and it fires up although not strongly. I ride 60 miles home, shut it off and 5 minutes later it fires right up. Two hours later, fires right up again.

It was not on a Battery Tender during it's vacation but I did plug it in for a few hours and it started right up a month or so ago. I let it idle then until the fan came on and shut it down.

Battery?(no idea on it's age as it was in the bike when I bought it 6-700 miles and 1.5 years ago) Stator? R/R?

Thoughts? Thanks.
 
#7 ·
As opposed to starting a new thread.....

I pulled my '06 out yesterday after a 10 month nap. It fired up and idled normally so I rode around the building and parked it while I suited up. The bike had ran for 5-7 minutes at idle when I shut it off as the cooling fan had come on and I was still 5 minutes from leaving. When it was time to go I hit the starter button and it turned over twice and quit. Key off. Key on. Hit button and same thing. One more try and it fires up although not strongly. I ride 60 miles home, shut it off and 5 minutes later it fires right up. Two hours later, fires right up again.

It was not on a Battery Tender during it's vacation but I did plug it in for a few hours and it started right up a month or so ago. I let it idle then until the fan came on and shut it down.

Battery?(no idea on it's age as it was in the bike when I bought it 6-700 miles and 1.5 years ago) Stator? R/R?

Thoughts? Thanks.

Your battery was dead.



You can't expect it to charge up in a couple of minutes riding around a neighborhood at just above idle. You should've let the engine continue to run and suited up faster. There's no reason to turn it off just because the fans came on. That's what it does. You didn't cool off the motor by shutting it down. That just creates hot spots. If the motor isn't running, then the coolant isn't circulating. So the hot coolant in the motor never gets back to the radiator to be cooled. You know, where the fan is mounted. :idea:


Your battery was dead, you didn't let it charge initially, and then it was fine. Nothing else to be concerned with.
 
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