This will probably start a small religious war, but so be it. I'm in the process of installing a new G8 stator from David Silver in anticipation of a Rae-San hall effect ignition system. As it turns out, the stator came with a set of plastic male & female three-blade plugs that appear to match the stock plugs, along with the appropriate spade & female lugs to assemble them. My question is whether there would be advantages to simply hard-wire the yellow wires from the stator to the voltage regulator, with soldered splices in shrink tubing, as opposed to wiring up the supplied plug to retain the stock configuration.
I've seen comments that the plugs represent a source of eventual corrosion, increased resistance and resulting heat that can damage the plugs. My bike started with a G47 stator, so I'll be getting higher current from the G8. On the other hand, having the plugs in the wiring harness obviously facilitates various maintenance activities. I'm interested in others' experience.
You have to take it all apart anyway so do what you want to, its not like a light bulb it should last a while. Has anyone have had an issue with the plug before?
I always put the connector block back but recently I was working on a bike that had a new stator 12 months ago, I was surprised to feel the connector was really hot, pulling it apart the spade terminals were white. The atmosphere is very damp here and probably caused the corrosion, so check the connection often. On my bike that I use all through winter and run on salted roads I have the wires soldered.
Vibration can cause fretting and increased resistance then heat and a failed connection. Dielectric grease can help, solder eliminates the possibility, and hopefully you won't need to open this connection often.
But bad soldering ?( ie: me too often ) too hot tempers the copper wire to brittleness....while too cold inserts various resins around solder globs on unclean metal....
versus : not using a good crimp tool for the lugs used, I suppose.
There is this as a thought experiment ...imagine a trip where regulator fails...battery overcharges-system voltage rises... Unplugging a single stator lead reduces charging current by a third. Can't do that with solder. (yes OEM regulators are very good and maybe unlikely scenario-still, I like options especially the ones I can't think of now*)
I like OCR's idea of Bigger connectors -that seems a great idea .even if a larger gets funky, corroded at least it has more surface area and less resistance.
*of course, on the other hand, you could run headlight with both beams and dump some current thataway...)
I would use the connector but I would also remove the wires from the mating connector, clean every spec of dirt/corrosion/anything else out of the housing, cut the old terminals off and crimp on fresh, new ones. And make sure that all of the crimped connections are tightly with the proper tool - just squeezing them with vise grips (like I saw recommended on a TV show for backyard mechanics once) won't cut it.
I figure if the originals lasted 20+ years without any problems.....
BTW Re GoldWings burning their plugs: My 'Wing has the original plugs ('79 engine, '83 bike) and they are just fine. But I unplug mine every few years, either when the engine has to come out or if I am just working on something in that general area and think of it. When you unplug & re-plug that type of connector it scrapes off any corrosion that has worked its way between the male & female terminals so that you have clean metal against clean metal again.
Eccles is another matter. With the extreme conditions I run it in (road salt &c) I check the plug at least a couple of times per year and I have replaced terminals when green corrosion has appeared inside the connector.
I would never solder any connection that important. As Trundler mentioned, it is quite common for the copper wire to become brittle next to the soldered joint, eventually leading to the wire breaking.
The Marettes beach in Vitrolles (Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence, France) on August 10, after it was reopened. The beach had been closed for a week due to pollution caused by heavy rains.
Hey boy, stay where yer at while I come where yer to!!!
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