angus67
Welder's penetrate deeper!!
Even though my original voltage regulator was working fine, I was just not comfortable running it on a 43 year old bike. I would like to keep the bike original looking on the outside, but solid state on the inside. Kinda of a retro rod.
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The original is in perfect shape, so I may keep or sell, don't know.
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Heres the new, Its for a 1974 cj5 with a 4 liter 6.
As you can see, it is not plug and play. I cut the connector off it and the plug from the wiring harness that plugged into the vr.
Then joined and soldered the orange and yellow wire to the brown wire from the harness, soldered them together, then soldered the green to green, black to black with 2 layers of shrink on all three solder joints, mounted to stock location.
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Put the battery back on, fully charged, starter 'er up, found I have -+ 12v to the new vr. When reved to 4k , the voltage only climbed to high 13v, and bounce around.
So thru twomanyxs1-b's help, I started tracking down the system. Found almost 1v drop from brown wire that feeds the vr. Then checked battery voltage to the iggy switch, full volts there, checked red/yellow out of the switch, .5 drop there, acceptable.
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This looks to be a new unused original switch. it was in a bucket of parts and hardware I got from the po. Looks much better than the cheap one I got from mikesxs. I have batt voltage into the switch on red wire, and .5 drop on the red/yellow wire out.
Checked Battery voltage to brown that feeds the vr in the head light, good there, check the other end, 1 volt drop. Twomany suggested checking volts to outter brush on brush holder, unattached from stator..more than 1 volt drop there.
Ick. time to unwrap the harness. So after unwrapping, I look for squiggly wires(sign of overheated wire), dead end wires. Found a couple of those, some original solder joints that didn't look too god, redid those, checked grounds on upper motor mount, sand papered those to shiny metal, put it back together, fired it up. satisfied that the wiring looked good, unhooked all the bullet connectors in the head light shell cleaned those, Put all those back together, turned key on, left flasher was bright a hell! not flashing either. Uh, oh. No power to the vr, either. Unhook all that mess in the shell, and for 4 hours couldn't figure it out, unplugging, plugging, unplugging......Finally, everything came back on correctly, except the rear tail light. more fiddling with the wires up top. Once I was sure it was all fine, I just lightly taped the tail bulb, it flashed. Pull the bulb, broken filament. Stupid thing. Throw in a led 1157, every thing worked.
Topped off battery, let it normalize. 12.8 volts in battery not running. Start the bike, at 1300rpm idle, 13.2 volts. at -+4500rpms, 14.2. rock solid up to 6krpms. I let it idle down, slowly went down to 13.2 volts. Turn on the high beam, turn signal, brake light(I know brake and turns are occasional use), volts at idle 13.1, at 4k, 14.2.
Yay!! Time to wrap it up. fresh electrical tape every were.
One question I have is since The vr-115 can only be mounted using one hole, is it ok? or should I mount strap of metal to bridge the gap to a second hole? As seen in 3rd pic.
Thanks to all that have contributed, especially Twomanyxs1-b.
[/URL][/IMG]
The original is in perfect shape, so I may keep or sell, don't know.
[/URL][/IMG]
Heres the new, Its for a 1974 cj5 with a 4 liter 6.
As you can see, it is not plug and play. I cut the connector off it and the plug from the wiring harness that plugged into the vr.
Then joined and soldered the orange and yellow wire to the brown wire from the harness, soldered them together, then soldered the green to green, black to black with 2 layers of shrink on all three solder joints, mounted to stock location.
Put the battery back on, fully charged, starter 'er up, found I have -+ 12v to the new vr. When reved to 4k , the voltage only climbed to high 13v, and bounce around.
So thru twomanyxs1-b's help, I started tracking down the system. Found almost 1v drop from brown wire that feeds the vr. Then checked battery voltage to the iggy switch, full volts there, checked red/yellow out of the switch, .5 drop there, acceptable.
[/URL][/IMG]
This looks to be a new unused original switch. it was in a bucket of parts and hardware I got from the po. Looks much better than the cheap one I got from mikesxs. I have batt voltage into the switch on red wire, and .5 drop on the red/yellow wire out.
Checked Battery voltage to brown that feeds the vr in the head light, good there, check the other end, 1 volt drop. Twomany suggested checking volts to outter brush on brush holder, unattached from stator..more than 1 volt drop there.
Ick. time to unwrap the harness. So after unwrapping, I look for squiggly wires(sign of overheated wire), dead end wires. Found a couple of those, some original solder joints that didn't look too god, redid those, checked grounds on upper motor mount, sand papered those to shiny metal, put it back together, fired it up. satisfied that the wiring looked good, unhooked all the bullet connectors in the head light shell cleaned those, Put all those back together, turned key on, left flasher was bright a hell! not flashing either. Uh, oh. No power to the vr, either. Unhook all that mess in the shell, and for 4 hours couldn't figure it out, unplugging, plugging, unplugging......Finally, everything came back on correctly, except the rear tail light. more fiddling with the wires up top. Once I was sure it was all fine, I just lightly taped the tail bulb, it flashed. Pull the bulb, broken filament. Stupid thing. Throw in a led 1157, every thing worked.
Topped off battery, let it normalize. 12.8 volts in battery not running. Start the bike, at 1300rpm idle, 13.2 volts. at -+4500rpms, 14.2. rock solid up to 6krpms. I let it idle down, slowly went down to 13.2 volts. Turn on the high beam, turn signal, brake light(I know brake and turns are occasional use), volts at idle 13.1, at 4k, 14.2.
Yay!! Time to wrap it up. fresh electrical tape every were.
One question I have is since The vr-115 can only be mounted using one hole, is it ok? or should I mount strap of metal to bridge the gap to a second hole? As seen in 3rd pic.
Thanks to all that have contributed, especially Twomanyxs1-b.
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