Triumphrat

SVRider

Pulled off the left side engine cover on my salvage project S4, to replace it due to rash. The top 4 or 5 windings on the stator look rather...well...burnt! They are pretty black and crusty. The stuff kinda flakes off, but the other 80% of the coils looks perfect, fresh copper color, no black, no flaking.

The bike has 3600 miles on it, 600 of which are mine and the charging system works flawlessly. In fact, the salvage bike yard I bought it from commented on how this S4 was one of the best bike there as far as starting. It always started, months between starts and the starter always sounds strong he said, and I agree. I had a 100 mile night ride with high beams and a mix of highway and stop and go and it was perfect.

So with all that said, do I worry about the top coils? Should I try to clean them off and risk loosening the crud to then flow around the motor or leave it alone?

SVRider

Pulled the tank, unplugged the stator coil from the wiring harness and have some pictures.





I'm hoping and or assuming that when the other owner lowsided on the left engine cover, that it moved the stator fractionally and it was rubbing the heads on the magnet.

3 coils are a little black, 5 show significant cookage, and the other 10 are virgin clean copper.

Scrub it clean with contact cleaner and a wire brush and bolt it back together

-or-

Get it rewound before it let's me down out on the road?

Will

I cannot tell from the photo whether that is a burned on crust or if the wires themselves are burned.

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Will
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SVRider

Thanks for taking a moment to reply Will!

Going to take it to the work bench tonite with a wire brush and some contact cleaner. Will repost some pictures after I clean them up. Here's hoping for nuthin' but crust!

IMHO If the wire are still bonded together in one mass, and insulated from each other and earth then it is ok.

I think that if the resin has burnt to the extent that the wires move individually you will lose some charge, as they will respond to the spinning magnets by moving not generating. Same if the whole coil is loose.

So there is not much risk to other components in putting it back....apart from flakes of resin falling off that is . My only worry would be that the stator may be off centre & touching the rotor.

Personally I would clean it with a soft wire brush to remove loose bits. Then clean the surface with degreaser & lacquer over any bare copper or crusty bits that wont come off. {We used to use nail varnish years ago but there is probably a correct substance to use!}

Then paint a very thin layer of a bright colour paint, or nail varnish, over the ends of the poles where the staor passes. Put the it back together, spin it over. Rip off the cover & see if the paint is still there, it will wear off where there is metal to metal contact or a less than 1 thou gap.


:???: After all those years I have just twigged that maybe we used nail varnish because our head mechanic had a personal store of it :knkknk:


Jon