Melted wiring in harness

I forgot to mention that while troubleshooting my radiator fan problem I stumbled onto melted wires in the harness coming off of the CDI unit. One of them happened to be the infamous ground wire. The other is a white wire with a green tracer which seems to be the signal from the pickup coil under the flywheel. Anyway, the sucker would still run. I cut out the bad portions of the wires and soldered in new wire. Just something for you guys to check when you get a chance. I upgraded the grounding first thing after I purchased it used.

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Thank god you found that when you did and not out on a trail at night away from the house.

Yeah no kidding!!! It was strictly a stroke of luck or divine providence! By the way, I really appreciate the help with the picture uploading. Thanks!!

All no problem anything I can do to help it just might not be much sometimes. Lol

White with green stripe wire  seems to have to do with the ignition pickup coil associated with the stator. You might want to check the system voltage at the battery while running, just to make sure that it is charging properly. The pickup coil and the stator proper are quite independent of each other (sharing the magnet(s) in the flywheel) but is sold as a 'set' by Yamaha.

Did the burn-up happen very recently, or might you have noticed something that happened long ago? Perhaps the smell would be a clue there?

When you revamped the grounding, did you disconnect the black pigtail wire from the battery negative terminal? That is the ground return path that I was suggesting be eliminated in favor of direct connections to the frame (the wire harness end of the pigtail to the frame and a beefy connection from motor case to frame). Just in case you have not seen this post: https://hotrodrhinoforums.forumotion.com/t1104-improve-your-grounding

Steve,
         Not exactly sure when this calamity occured, but I suspect that it was prior to me buying it third hand. The reason that I say that is that the owner previous to me stated that he had a winch on that burned up after two or three uses. I replaced the stator back in April of this year and  have had no problems with charging. Also, prior to joining any forums, I realized that the engine was mounted on rubber bushings and grounding appeared to be puny. Any way, charging is good; two batteries with sure power isolator; and grounding not nearly as neat as yours, but functional.  Would your guess  be around 20 amps output for stator. I'm sorrry, What is your exact figure?
(Kidding of course). You have to be an engineer!!!!

Correction on previous statement: I have a sure power battery separator, not an isolator.

TBOMB wrote:

Steve,
         Not exactly sure when this calamity occured, but I suspect that it was prior to me buying it third hand. The reason that I say that is that the owner previous to me stated that he had a winch on that burned up after two or three uses. I replaced the stator back in April of this year and  have had no problems with charging. Also, prior to joining any forums, I realized that the engine was mounted on rubber bushings and grounding appeared to be puny. Any way, charging is good; two batteries with sure power isolator; and grounding not nearly as neat as yours, but functional.  Would your guess  be around 20 amps output for stator. I'm sorrry, What is your exact figure?
(Kidding of course). You have to be an engineer!!!!

Yeah, I am/was an engineer, retiring at the end of next week
I am a mechanical engineer with my fingers in electronics, optics, lasers and assorted stuff as it comes up.

If you are interested in the power output of the stock stator, I did a load test series a long while back on my 2004. Switched banks of incandescent lights that I used as a load while measuring the voltage at the battery. When the voltage drops to battery rest voltage, that is all that the charging system has to give. I was actually comparing the output of the stock Rectifier/Regulator module with an aftermarket module from Black Rhino at the time.

Congratulations on your retirement!!!
     I was asking about the current output because I noticed while troubleshooting my radiator fan problem, that it was drawing approx. 5.5 amps and from what I've read, the output is somewhere close to 250 watts for the stock stator. If so, thats close to 25 percent of total output and needs to be considered when adding accesories.  By the way, my Dad was a Civil Engineer and I still have problems using any thing other than an HP calculator.

TBOMB wrote:

Congratulations on your retirement!!!
     I was asking about the current output because I noticed while troubleshooting my radiator fan problem, that it was drawing approx. 5.5 amps and from what I've read, the output is somewhere close to 250 watts for the stock stator. If so, thats close to 25 percent of total output and needs to be considered when adding accesories.  By the way, my Dad was a Civil Engineer and I still have problems using any thing other than an HP calculator.

HaHa. Yeah, me too, for a long time. That Reverse Polish Notation frys your brain in regards to thinking normal-like. It wasn't until computers took over that I could do arithmetic the 'proper' way.

One way to think about it is to consider what the duty cycle is on the fan motor. If it runs for 15 seconds for every 15 minutes, it is not much to worry about at all. If you are out plowing the field and the fan is full on, well, then you don't want to be flashing the big lights and throwing the tunes out. A digital voltmeter in the dash is a good way to keep tabs on what is going on. 12.7 volts or so is the break point for losing ground on the battery charging. You have dual isolated batteries, you should not have to worry too much about it as long as you have the non-essential stuff running off of the aux system.

I am indeed looking forward to kicking back for a while. Counting the days, no less.