Flyinfool

Now you understand why I kept steering you back to solving the charging issue before messing with anything else.

Not just any clamp on meter, most clamp ons will only read AC Amps. You need one specifically made for DC Amps.

Glad to hear that you are close to having it licked. I would still do the testing to find the bad connection in that ground wire and fix it right. Even if that right is cutting out the connector and soldering all of the wires together. Go back to posts #121 and #123. It is a good feeling to get an electrical gremlin under your boot.....

Pics, we need pics:worthless: Who told you it is 3 inches to high in the rear?

Another way to color many plastics is to boil them in water and RIT dye, the kind made for dying cloths. By varying the time you can decide just how muck tint you want, and can even mix colors to make it match the bike.

I don't know, I tend to like my bikes to have a little more substance......

A couple of things. My temp gage also sits just below the red whether it is 40°F or 100°F outside. So I consider that normal. I have never noticed or heard bubbling in the system, but to be fair I never listened for it either. That would indicate that you have some air where it don't belong, or even a cooling system leak. Running in a high gear at low speed will actually make the engine run hotter, not cooler. At low engine speed the water pump is also at a low speed and not able to move as much water. It also takes a more open throttle to maintain the speed and the burning mixture in the cylinder is in there for a longer amount of time. This allows more heat transfer to the cylinder walls raising the engine temp. Try running so that the engine stays around 3500 to 4500 rpm. I run low engine rpm in a higher gear to help heat the bike up faster when it is sub freezing temps out.

I kind of saved this test for last as it does put the electrical system under stress. Shopping trip........ You can use a battery load tester to help find your bad connection. Connect the load tester across the battery. When you push the button on the tester it will put a 100 amp load on the electrical system. Bike should be running at a fast idle, maybe around 3000 rpm. Connect your volt meter to both sides of the connection that you are testing. Push the button on the load tester, if the connection is bad you will see a voltage on your test meter. If the voltage across that connection stays near zero, then that is a good connection. You should only have to press the button on the tester for 1 or 2 seconds to determine if your connection is good or not. DO NOT get to crazy fast with repeatedly pushing that button or hold it for a long time. Everything needs time to cool down between tests. Pay attention to the temperatures of the tester, the battery, the RR and the wires that run from the RR to the battery. There is a very good chance that the bad connection could get real hot real fast, keep an eye out for that so you do not melt the connector that houses the bad connection.

If the tire was rubbing you should be able to see rub marks somewhere. Even if more air in the shock causes the "aroma" to go away, you still want to find that rub spot to get some paint back on it so that it does not rust.

It means you have a bad connection on the negative side, between the RR connector and battery negative. The voltage that you are measuring is the resistance of that bad connection. The reason it goes up as the rpm goes up is that the ignition draws more power as the rpm goes up. As the amp draw goes up the the voltage drop also goes up. As that voltage drop gets bigger the dash and battery volt meters will go down. You need to track down that bad connection. Follow the black wire from the rr all the way to the battery negative. clean every connection. inspect every place where a wire is crimped to a contact. The contacts may be clean but the crimp attaching the contact to the wire may be the bad connection.

When I converted my dash to LED I used a lower power Blue LED for the High beam indicator. Just right

Only 5000 bikes? I guess Guinness was never invited to hardly fest in Milwaukee

If there were a short in the brake circuit it would blow the fuse and no longer pull the voltage down. But that is not what is happening. Between the low output at idle and the amount of power required to activate the anti dives and the brake lights, that is enough to cause a voltage drop. A weak connection in the charging circuit will also cause the brakes to drop the voltage more than normal. It is still my opinion that you need to solve the charging issue before delving into any other issues. A weak or intermittent charging system does many weird things.

Out of curiosity, what is the current record that they are trying to break?

The pics for the brochure were likely taken of a prototype bike. This is often done so that the brochures can be out before the production bikes are ready. There are sometimes slight changes between the last prototype and the first production versions. It happens all the time where I work. But I do Like the look of the brown plastic better than the black. Hmmmm........

Good thing he has a 2nd gen so he does not have to worry about the speed limit like the 1st gens do.

:sign yeah that: With the breaks being near the mounting points, if it were to fail there the whole widshield will end up in the grandsons face, it is most likely to break at high speed like on the freeway. That could easily cause a lose of control between the shock factor, the impact of the windshield, and the sudden blast of wind he is likely to end up in the back seat. I hate to say it, but I have to agree with Eck. Time to go windshield shopping.

And while you have the starter out and opened up you can to the Dingy ground plate mod. The ground mod will help the hot start issue, as will switching to welding cable for the leads. The ultimate fix is still the 4 brush starter.

:sign yeah that: We seem to be chasing a moving target, as in an intermittent connection some where. Try hooking the volt meter up across the battery, set the engine to 3000, then start shaking and wiggling the wire harnesses along with some pulling on the wires at the connectors, to see if you can make the voltage change, or the engine miss. Whether it goes up or down don't matter at this point, it should not change no matter how much you massage the wires.

It is possible that the contacts are nice and clean but the crimp to the wire is corroded inside of the crimp. The easiest way to fix that would be to cut the connector out and solder red to red, black to black, brown to brown if you have a brown (some years do not have the brown wire, I don't remember which). Don't forget to slide on the heat shrink before soldering. Last year when I was chasing electrical gemlins, One of the things I found was a weak factory crimp. So it can happen.

I'm still scratching my head on that one. OK so at speed you have 14.8V at the RR, and 13.4 on the batt side. When you say the batt side do you mean at the battery, or at the battery side of the RR connector. IF this is at the battery side of the RR connector, you have found your bad connection. I have to think on this one.........

I was watching your vid again. I noticed that the battery indicator is lit on the computer monitor. I also noticed that sometimes it appears that the rpm jumps higher. an electrical dro ou should make the tach drop.

If you have a bad charging system and are with someone that has a bike with the same or very similar battery you can go forever swapping batteries between the 2 bikes. One bike runs them down and the other charges them.

I had 2 finished ones left that have been spoken for. I have several that are partly machined that I can finish up next week.

Thats better than the 12.4 battery voltage you had earlier. Check red to black on both sides of the plug, it should be the same both sides of plug. Check red to black both sides of plug at 3000 rpm. Check voltage of red at regulator to positive battery post. If you get a 0V reading try the 2V scale. Check voltage of black at regulator to negative battery post. If you get a 0V reading try the 2V scale. Did you ever check the main fuse? it has a fuseable link that is attached with 2 screws. Those connections have been known to get corroded or the screws loose.