Stator Woes

Message

Crazie · #1 Post by **Crazie** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:50 pm

OK guys, I'll be working on this as time permits, so I'm not in a rush...I just want to know if I'm on the right track....

At the dunes this weekend with the 468. She was running great until I got about 1/4 of the way out of camp. At that point, she started spitting and sputtering and just died on me. When I tried starting it, sounded like the battery was dead. Easy fix, I'll charge it, then ride again. The only problem, is that the battery was good. Battery charges fine, and even started the quad a few minutes after it died and had time to cool down.

So, move on to the stator. Sure enough, the stator bolts had backed out. The stator is a bit mangled and the flywheel got chewed up where the bolts are. I replaced both, and found that now, I didn't get spark....so what the **** is going on here. Me and a couple of moto-brains started troubleshooting and found the voltage on the crank pickup was around .8v. According to them, most bikes are around .3v.....so we pulled the crank pickup and found a bunch of metal shavings. Cleaned it off, and viola! I have spark again.

Now, with spark, fuel and air....but still won't start. My next step was to pull the valve cover and check the clearances. I don't suspect this being a problem though, because it ran GREAT when it was running. I think I have a lot to check, but I was going to start there.

If anyone has a timesaving check for me, I'm all game. After spending most of my T-day trip sitting and not riding, I got some make-up rides to do.

Canniboomer · #2 Post by **Canniboomer** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:18 pm

... after a sputtering stall and all of the cranking, the sparkplug could now be fouled up.
It's really not very likely that anything else "internal" just happened to come up at the same time.

Crazie · #3 Post by **Crazie** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:28 pm

Well, we thought about the plug also. I pulled it, and it's good, replaced it anyways with a new one. The words I kept repeating to the guys helping me out is "It ran fine, and even started right before I replaced the stator and flywheel...wtf could have happed?".

We did try pull starting it, and it somewhat worked. It would fire initially, then it acted like something was stuck in the intake....like hitting a rev limiter at 1k rpms. It wouldn't idle for even a second, and eventually died even with me revving it. So it is getting all the ingredients to fire up, it's just not doing it.

It's going to me tomorrow at the soonest before I can start playing with it again....but I'll be taking pics and throwing updates as I find things.

Canniboomer · #4 Post by **Canniboomer** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:58 pm

Yep that is puzzling. Do you have another Voltage Regulator to try? A bad Vreg can give those same symptoms, and we know of of least one Vreg unit here that was mysteriously and suddenly "bad" after a shorting-out problem with a stator. But on that particular machine, it would manage to start up, but soon sputtered and died with any touch of the thumb throttle. But also,......with the key in the headlight-ON position and using up 75 more watts, it ran fine?!...... That was how I finally tracked it down to the bad voltage regulator. I still suspect that the stator mishap had somehow ruined the Vreg. Maybe an auto-electric guru can chime in here, and give an opinion on whether that is possible or not.

wistech · #5 Post by **wistech** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:12 pm

Did you replace the flywheel with a spun one?

claas900 · #6 Post by **claas900** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:40 pm

try replacing you crank sensor in steed of just wiping your old one off.

MX Quad Dad · #7 Post by **MX Quad Dad** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:18 am

check for sheared flywheel keyway.

Crazie · #8 Post by **Crazie** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:12 am

QUOTE (Wistech @ Dec 1 2008, 02:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did you replace the flywheel with a spun one?

I'm not sure what a spun flywheel looks like. I'm guessing spun means that the timing marks are no longer in the correct position. I did check that against the one I pulled, and two others and they all looked identical.

The flywheel keyway is good also, these were checks we made during the swap. However, we did remove everything one more time to double-check due to the lack of spark (wanted to make sure after we cleaned the pickup that nothing else was laying around to collect on it).

I'll try the regulator, since it's an easy 30 second swap (this is where I say THANK YOU AZCannon for unloading all those parts with the speed!)....but the guys helping me that day are electrical wizzes and checked the Vreg, but could only check one half of the circuit due to not having specs on it....so maybe that could be it,

I'll also check the crank pickup as it's another easy swap. I'm pretty sure it's good at this point though, since I'm getting correct voltage from it and I see spark.

While I have a few folks attention, can anyone explain the difference between Vregs??? I have different ones, and also different stators. The current stator and Vreg is a 3-wire setup, but I have a couple of (I'm guessing OEM) stators with 2-wire plugs....one is flat, the other is triangle shaped. So I have 3 different connections on stators that I have. I figure it's an update, but why did Cannondale have two different connectors on the OEM ones?

Thanks for all the responses guys! I'll update as soon as I get a chance to try firing her up.

cannondale27 · #9 Post by **cannondale27** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:06 pm

2 wire stators were for bikes with no fan or lights.

Crazie · #10 Post by **Crazie** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:58 pm

QUOTE (cannondale27 @ Dec 2 2008, 07:06 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

2 wire stators were for bikes with no fan or lights.

OK, that explains it. I guess I have some bike parts too then!