There I was, three sheets to the wind after tearing through the parking lots of every bar in town looking for her. Sure she said she'd meet me, but I never got the name of the pub. So, beginning on Saturday afternoon I initiated a Jack-induced tour of all the saloons in San Pedro. Yeah, there's Tommy's downtown on 6th, The Spot and Rebels on Pacific, and Harold's, the baddest joint on the point. That was my last stop and the last time the touring chop would start. I wasn't warned, it just quit. The battery was toast.
Jesse James touted that a safety wired alternator was foolproof, but with less than 3,000 miles on the clock it started to jump ship, and this dingy was rubbermounted. So I surmised with a gut full of Jack Daniel's that the plug had come loose again and that's all it needed. Not so Kimosabe, the first check was to charge the battery and start the bike. If you run a volt meter across the battery it should jump from 11 to 13 or 14 volts. Nada, so I unplugged the alternator and tried the meter across the plug sticking out of the case. It should read some 30 volts AC. Nada. If it had come up strong, the regulator was toast. Since it didn't, the alternator had hit the road.
The resource for the fix was a Custom Chrome catalog. They carry virtually everything needed to fix this type of problem. They carry complete original equipment kits that include the stator, rotor, hardware, regulator, tie-wraps and gaskets, or you can order any number of regulators, Spyke billet steel rotors, high amperage kits, stator replacements, you name it from 22 amp, to 32 and 40 amp kits. You can rock your battery's world with some of the shit they have. For this job we chose the original equipment high-output, 40-amp kit, part number 75-269 (photo 1).
The first trick is to disassemble the existing parts. Remove the primary and the compensating sprocket, and if you're lucky you can do the job without removing the clutch or the inner primary. Since we were running a Rivera belt drive we need only remove the engine shaft nut, the Terry balancer and spacers, then the washer.
Photo 1
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Photo 2
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Not as easy as it seems. The nuts wouldn't budge with our weak air wrench, so we put the 1 1/4 socket on a long-handled t-bar and began to work it. With the belt drive there's no sticking an old screwdriver in the sprocket to prevent it from moving. We dug in the wedge drawer and found a wedge 8 1/6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. It fit perfectly into the teeth of the engine sprocket and the clutch hub (photo 2). Then the t-handle did the trick. The nut came off, then the pulley cover, the Terry balancer (for a smoother stroker), the sprocket, another belt guide, and two massive washers.
The rotor, because of the laminated magnets, wants to stay in place. Stock units have two holes across from one another and if you're real lucky you can wedge two 3/16-inch Allen wrenches in the holes and rock the rotor back and forth until it slips off the shaft. We weren't so lucky. In the worse case scenario you must tape the holes with a 3/8 coarse tape and use a puller to remove it. We tried plan B by rotating the engine until the holes were front and rear. With a stout flat blade screwdriver we wedged the rear of the rotor and rocked the front with the Allen wrench. After some jiggling we had some success and finally the rotor was removed (Photo 3).
Photo 3
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Photo 4
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The stator was held in place with four torx screws, which are a pain in the ass, if you don't have a small, Allen-like torx set. Digging in a tool bag from the last Sturgis run, we discovered one and removed the screws. Just about the time we felt we had this task licked, we discovered an alternator plug set screw partially buried behind the inner primary. This is an S&S design, and for a long moment we felt the pangs of mechanic's frustration when discovering that more must be disassembled to do the jobÑbummer. Quick, get me a shot of Jack or a frosty beer. But our innovative minds would not let it be. We punched a guide notch in the inner primary and drilled a 1/8 hole through the soft aluminum to the set screw hole. Then we backed it up with a 3/16 drill and some round file action (Photo 4). The set screw was accessible. We backed it off and the stator came free.
Replacing the unit was simple, sorta. With some oil smeared around the stator plug we inserted it in the hole and pushed gently with a flat-bladed screwdriver until over 5/8 of an inch of plug was protruding from the case, then the set screw was tightened again. Giggie from Compu-Fire recommends that you shoot a dollop of silicon in the hole to insure that the little bastard will stay in place. Then the stator was slipped into place (photo 5) and the screws driven home. These screws generally come with a locking material impregnated on them. Tighten them to 12-inch pounds of torque and you're done. Ah, but not yet. It seems that S&S makes their engine shafts a measly .00015 inches larger that stock. Compu-fire makes a rotor that fits (carried by Custom Chrome), but the original equipment rotor must be filed to relieve the area. In addition, the S&S shaft teeth are .0001 wider than stock so a half thousandth must be taken off the sides of each tooth. This maneuver took 15 minutes of intense filing. We could have forced the rotor into place, but it would have been impossible to remove in the future.
Photo 5
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Photo 6
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Don't ever hit the rotor with a hammer. Not only may you jar a magnet loose, but it's possible to reverse the polarity of a magnet with a strong enough jolt. With the rotor replaced we installed the new large washer, then a smaller one, the pulley guide, the pulley (while walking the belt on with it) (photo 6), the Terry balancing unit, another pulley guard, then the shaft nut. We tightened it with the t-bar until it was snug then the air wrench handled the final job. No Locktite was necessary.
In most cases, replacing the regulator is as easy as removing two 7/16 nuts, pulling off the old one, shit-canning it, having another beer and putting the new one back on. Not here. West Coast Choppers chose to install the regulator behind the battery box underneath the seat and run the wires under the engine. In the process of removing the old one we discovered that the wires had been crushed between the frame and the engine, shorting them out and destroying the alternator. We purchased enough wire to extend the plug and run the wires out of harm's way. Each junction was carefully soldered, then shrink-wrapped for protection. Check the hand that holds this regulator plug in place (photos 7 & 8). It will never move again.
Photo 7
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Photo 8
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That's it. If you run the regulator in a remote position, make sure the wires are protected and that air can get to the regulator fins to keep it cool. Of course, before you roll out of Michigan heading for Mardi Gras, make sure to check your battery cable connections at both ends. Ensure that they're clean and tight or all the cool charging systems on the planet won't help. Check the water in the battery while you're at it. Now ride like Thor is tossing lightening bolts at your ass.
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