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FZ1 not charging

Aluisious said:
Necro thread...my FZ1 is long gone. Long story short, the RR was fine, the first gen FZ1 just has an incredibly shitty electrical harness. It sends ALL of the power for the bike through the ignition switch, through a narrow gauge wire, from the fuse box under the seat and back. This causes a huge voltage drop.

There is no relay. The only fix is to rig your own relay, to correct Yamaha's lazy and shitty design.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised how many bikes do that.

I had a similar situation with my ST where the voltage from the battery that supplies the current to the alternator (electromagnets, not permanent magnets) was routed to the fuse box, up to the ignition switch, back to the fuse box and then finally back to the alternator. All with the expected voltage drop. Thus, the magnetic field in my alternator wasn't what it should be. I wired up a fused large gauge connection directly to the field coil of the alternator, turned on and off by a relay triggered by the old wire to the field coil from the ignition switch. I immediately saw a jump in alternator voltage at idle from 13.7 to 14.2.

Many bikes can benefit from some rewiring or upgrading of components. Like when your VRR dies, don't just replace it with another factory unit. Find one that has a better reputation for reliability and is also rated for a higher output alternator. Often, if you do that, you end up with a VRR that will never give you trouble again because it's not working so hard and not running as hot as the old one used to. You can even change the location of the VRR to put it in a cooler place. I did that with an old Suzuki I had once. Put in an aftermarket stator and upgraded the VRR with one from a higher output Honda. Suzukis of that era had a reputation for terrible charging systems and after that I didn't have one lick of trouble.
 
first go to this web site.

http://www.yamahafz1oa.com/

second the first gen develops full charge at 5K rpms.

between the stater and rectifier. (if i have the names right) there are these three white connectors (under the fuel tank).. they go bad. not to worry as there is a very easy fix. (yamaha used poor -lack of quality- connecters here).
the first gen fz is not a power house for electric. it was built from a race motor design. so things like headlights were not thought of.

replace all of the "other" lights run/turn with leds. and with a connecter (no wire cutting) one can turn off one head light as needed.


how is your battery? a week/bad cell will case all kinds of problems.

any add ons can easily out do the stater's ability to make juice.
use them wisely little panda.
 
KTMCHUCK said:
I fully understand that this is a very old thread but I'm having exactly the same problem and I just don't have the patience to deal with it I would rather sell the bike and be done with it. any suggestions on how to fix it or a good local mechanic to do it for me. Also the bike needs a valve adjustment carb sync new chain amen sprockets and I already replaced the rectifier regulator is fixed it for a short period of time but now I'm back in the same situation. It has 58000 miles I'm just thinking its time to call her quits
Click to expand...

are you working on a first gen FZ?

charging problems are a very easy fix.

go here to read all about it.

http://www.yamahafz1oa.com/


.
 
packnrat said:
first go to this web site.

http://www.yamahafz1oa.com/

second the first gen develops full charge at 5K rpms.

between the stater and rectifier. (if i have the names right) there are these three white connectors (under the fuel tank).. they go bad. not to worry as there is a very easy fix. (yamaha used poor -lack of quality- connecters here).
the first gen fz is not a power house for electric. it was built from a race motor design. so things like headlights were not thought of.

replace all of the "other" lights run/turn with leds. and with a connecter (no wire cutting) one can turn off one head light as needed.


how is your battery? a week/bad cell will case all kinds of problems.

any add ons can easily out do the stater's ability to make juice.
use them wisely little panda.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I ran through most of those things myself. Cleaned up every connector, checked all the wires, fundamentally though running a narrow wire 5 feet around the bike with 30 amps is going to severely weaken the 12V circuit no matter what. It's like trying to drive a subway through a straw.

"Race motor design," fine, it's still a lazy and shitty design. It would have taken Yamaha no extra effort to do it right with a relay. It's not like they aren't aware of relays, the bike is full of them.

edit and yeah, that's a good site, I was on there too figuring out this stuff.
 
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if your stater checks out good to go, it is a good or not working thing, and your rectfier is but ing off unused juice might try a larger one off a differnt bike. almost a bolt on item but rated for twich as much

did you fix the connectors?


sad the fz1 is a very capable bike, just is very poor on the juice side.
 
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