Triumphrat

fogcutter · 04-06-2008

Okay,so the snow and ice is almost gone and its a balmmy 45 degrees outside. Good day for a little shake down ride. I go to the garage where my little girl sits, I talk real nice to her, I tickle her fancy a little, I turn her on, and after jumping on her about 500 time she finally gets excited and starts up. Do some fine tune on the carbs and go for a little ride. Got about 2 miles and she dies. Dead. Nuttin. Check the fuse. Its okay. I think maybe the ammeter went bah bye. Sure enough. I connect both wires to the same terminal and shazzam she powers up. Took her home to rest after that.

Does anyone know why I keep blowing ammeters. This is the second one. First was original lucas,second was taiwan copy.

GrandPaulZ · 04-06-2008

Your Zener is not dumping charge at the proper level, letting too much juice thru the ammeters, causing them to blow.

fogcutter · 04-06-2008

Not using Zenor. Have a Sparx unit installed. I am going to change it to the one that looks like the Zenor.Is there some way to check whether or not I am over charging. I have stock alternator and rotor.

GrandPaulZ · 04-07-2008

Double-check your wiring. I've never had that happen with Sparx stuff.

HughBromley · 04-08-2008

Presumably if too much current was going through the ammeter it would be obvious from the ammeter reading.

Does it now start and run ok ? or could it just be vibration and/or bad luck ?

fogcutter · 04-09-2008

After I connected both ammeter wires to one post the bike ran fine. I checked and double checked all the connections according to the diagram in my manual and everything checks out. The only thing different at this time is that the horns and relay are not hooked up. I have ground wires to the frame at the point where the zenor bolts to the frame and have the positive wire at battery grounded to the frame by the bolt that holds the oil tank bottom bracket to the frame. I used that point becuase it is about the ony place that I could ground w/o scraping away the powder coat. All the threads were cleaned with a tap. On my harness there was a wire with no connection on it coming from the same terminal as that for the pos on the battery. That is the wire that is connected to the frame. I would think that If I was generating that much juice that I would blow the head light or the bike would act as if there were a zenor in place. When I rev up things would get brighter. Any ideas on how to check just how much is going thru the meter would be of great help.

HughBromley · 04-10-2008

Err... I'm a bit confused about the question but here's my tuppence worth -

I presume it is a moving coil ammeter (i.e. a needle on a dial, not an aftermarket digital), so it will have a very low resistance and the current goes straight through it, deflecting the needle. This is the point where you've lost me: if too much current is flowing through the ammeter you would see the needle reading maximum as it hits the end-stop of its movement. So, to measure the current going through the meter you need an ammeter.

To see if your zener is ok, put a voltmeter (which will have a very high resistance) across your battery and rev the engine to mid-revs. It should show 13 - 14 volts. With a donald ducked zener it may go up to 19 or 20 volts, which will fry the battery in time.

As you mentioned, if it was the zener you might expect blown (or very bright) lights too.

GrandPaulZ · 04-10-2008

Hugh has it right (Welcome, Hugh).

You can buy an inexpensive clamp-on ammeter and clamp it around the main lead to the battery Negative (-) terminal, then run the test and see what the meter indicates.

fogcutter · 04-10-2008

Bike runs fine. Everything works as it should electrically. Not blowing fuses as if shorted. Q for Paul. Do I wire the ammeter in line with the neg lead?

aprophet · 04-13-2008

http://autorepair.about.com/library/a/1i/bl608i.htm
not sure this will help just a thought i had

me i went thru 4-5 cheap repo crap meters the one i have now is lucas from klempfs its been working about 7 months hth