Smoking Rectifier Wire Harness

My harness for the rectifier is getting ungodly hot, I cleaned them very well and put some dilectric grease on it, still the same issue, i cant seem to find whats causing it, Do you think the stator may be bad? its a 81 xj550

 

Nope.

Take the alternator apart and have a look. Don't assume; you'll see what I mean when you see how it works.

You may need brushes, a good cleaning, a combination of those, or you may have a wiring problem/ground issue somewhere. The whole system is very primitive, you'll see.

 

Iam pretty new to this bike some iam not sure wich side is the alternator, can you give me some direction. Thanks.

 

It is on the left side as you sit on the bike.

 

My apologies. On the left, just below the carbs. The larger round cover with three bolts securing it. The smaller one to the rear of it is the end of the starter.

The alternator brushes are mounted in the cover; there is a rather short lead wire and a fragile grommet you need to be careful with. The brushes press against the face of the rotor. The brushes have wear indicators carved into them; no way are yours anywhere near worn out (this is the 1500-mile bike, right) but the brush lead wires could be getting geen and fuzzy. I would more suspect corrosion on the face of the rotor or moisture incursion; anything is possible.

Get a new gasket first; the proper one is now aluminum, not the paper one originally fitted.

(You need a service manual.) You may need to "wring out" the charging system to figure it out. PM me with your email addy and I'll send the appropriate pages from the factory book.

 

Make sure that rectifier is properly grounded to the frame. Take it off and check.....

 

On the 550s the rectifier is mounted on a big hunk of plastic, the whole thing including ground is handled through its harness.

 

Thanks again for the info, bigfitz52 i sent you a pm and iam going to pull that apart in a few mins.

 

Well i pulled the alternator apart, that was a pain, one brush is worn about a 3rd to the wear line, the start was the big issue, the armature was rubbing on the wire that goes to the brush for the positive and one was torn off, i beleive thats where my short was, i cleaned it all up resolded and heat shrinked the wires and iam about to reinstall it.

 

Ok its all back together, wire still gets hot, Bike sounds amazing with the mufflers off lol. still got a wandering idle and its buggy.

 

you'll need some carb work to fix the idle issues. I don't know much about the electrical part.

 

one brush is worn about a 3rd to the wear line {quote}
The outside brush always is, it travels twice the distance.

 

Actually it was the inside brush thats worm the most.