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[Glide Boy]

Hello everyone,

My buddy has a Harley softail that keeps eating up voltage regulators.  Does anyone have any experience on what might me the culprit on what is causing this bike to do this?  The Harley shop that we are closest to just lost all of its mechanics, so we don't have much of a place to turn to on getting it fixed by anyone reliable right now.  If you have ever had any experience with this or know a solution, we would appreciate the information.

Thanks,

Glide Boy

[harleyteam]

I feed mine yamahas, with an occassional honda thrown in.  he should have stayed away from the dealers, and their mechanics might not have disappeared. ( do you think the bike might have eaten them too ??)



sorry,,,,  I read this thread 3 times before I wrote this,,,,,,,,, just couldn't help myself.

[AXIL]

  bad ground(s)

[JDOFLHRIDER]

  bad ground(s)

X2

[Twolanerider]

x3 on the grounds.  Also, have had a couple of instances over the years where it was a chicken or the egg thing as to which was the culprit between regulator and stator.  If the tech just guessed and took the easier option of changing the regulator it's worth checking the stator specifically and thoroughly.  One can kill the other sometimes.

[resident Alien]

x4 bad ground, depending on the year the bike might only have 3 wires from the regulator, (2 for the crankcase plug and 1 to the circuit breaker) later ones have 4 wires, same as before but with a ground wire.
If you have the earlier 3 wire type, when you replace the regulator look on the bottom and you will see a hole built into the casting, connect a 4th wire to this hole with a self tapping screw and run it directly back to the ground connection on the battery. this does away with the unit grounding out through the bolts holding the regulator to the frame, these bolts corrode, insulating the unit and stopping it from dumping excess to ground and then it burns out. I had the same problem about 9 hyears ago and went through a batch of regulators, to the point of keeping a spare in the tourpak, since making this mod I have never replaced another unit. As an extra precaution use dielectric grease on the self tapping screw.

Hope this helps your buddy

Alien