moddy
the mod
With the help of expert skills Gary Flynn (GreenZR) with a previous 40A upgrade experience and Harry (HR Cole) for driving an hour while on vacation to offer his assistance and occasional anecdote, we installed a 40A alternator then reassembled my bike, 10.5 hours
Some would say it seems like that took too long and I would say that none of those people have installed a 40A alternator in an ST1100 with all of "things" you can be presented with.
It was a good time, there was hardly no back tracking, getting too far ahead of ourselves then having take parts off to be able to put the right part on. It was just being careful. You have electric leads to pull off and disassemble, bolts and nuts to turn and all on a 25 year old bike, so we did it and did it well.
Some of the things that contributed to the extra time was placing the Lewis pin through the drain hole with the correct routing. If it doesn't come through the most straight approach, when you want to remove it from the spring loaded split gear of the base plate assembly, it probably won't come out. That means you have to pull the base plate assembly back out and figure out what is wrong before you break your cable off while trying to remove the Lewis pin and create more problems for yourself.
On the second attempt, having discovered some very small burrs on the Lewis pin and filing them off, was able to route everything properly and get the base plate gears to mesh then remove the pin. Taking your time is the key.
I also hadn't trimmed the shroud before I got there, we would just take the time to do that during the process of installation. At first it was to just trim off what we needed instead of following a picture example they later explained that too much was cut off and you could probably cut less. I'm sure by the time we got to that part, we reasoned there are so many other manufacturing holes in it, to not take that long cutting this piece so we could just move on.
The biggest time saver by far, when I got the alternator back from being rebuilt was finding the shaft teeth had taken enough of a beating it wouldn't mate to the new shaft of the base plate assembly. I spent at least an hour with a file de burring the dings so when it came time to expertly twist the alternator through the frame it would be a pleasant experience placing it then bolting it on.
There are no pictures, we literally did not take one until 13.9 volts was showing on the voltmeter for the first start. I think the main two reasons that happened is Gary and I tried putting on a working 28A stator 2 different times to keep me going, without the expense of an upgrade at the time. They both leaked. The first time more than the 2nd time. I have since successfully repaired the leak in that stator but to attempt a 3rd install with the time investment and not make the upgrade was not on the menu.
The other reason is there are so many well documented pictures for this I didn't feel like being redundant in making even more pictures to look at to reference this upgrade unless there was something that stood out. It didn't happen, there were no surprises, no pictures.
Some would say it seems like that took too long and I would say that none of those people have installed a 40A alternator in an ST1100 with all of "things" you can be presented with.
It was a good time, there was hardly no back tracking, getting too far ahead of ourselves then having take parts off to be able to put the right part on. It was just being careful. You have electric leads to pull off and disassemble, bolts and nuts to turn and all on a 25 year old bike, so we did it and did it well.
Some of the things that contributed to the extra time was placing the Lewis pin through the drain hole with the correct routing. If it doesn't come through the most straight approach, when you want to remove it from the spring loaded split gear of the base plate assembly, it probably won't come out. That means you have to pull the base plate assembly back out and figure out what is wrong before you break your cable off while trying to remove the Lewis pin and create more problems for yourself.
On the second attempt, having discovered some very small burrs on the Lewis pin and filing them off, was able to route everything properly and get the base plate gears to mesh then remove the pin. Taking your time is the key.
I also hadn't trimmed the shroud before I got there, we would just take the time to do that during the process of installation. At first it was to just trim off what we needed instead of following a picture example they later explained that too much was cut off and you could probably cut less. I'm sure by the time we got to that part, we reasoned there are so many other manufacturing holes in it, to not take that long cutting this piece so we could just move on.
The biggest time saver by far, when I got the alternator back from being rebuilt was finding the shaft teeth had taken enough of a beating it wouldn't mate to the new shaft of the base plate assembly. I spent at least an hour with a file de burring the dings so when it came time to expertly twist the alternator through the frame it would be a pleasant experience placing it then bolting it on.
There are no pictures, we literally did not take one until 13.9 volts was showing on the voltmeter for the first start. I think the main two reasons that happened is Gary and I tried putting on a working 28A stator 2 different times to keep me going, without the expense of an upgrade at the time. They both leaked. The first time more than the 2nd time. I have since successfully repaired the leak in that stator but to attempt a 3rd install with the time investment and not make the upgrade was not on the menu.
The other reason is there are so many well documented pictures for this I didn't feel like being redundant in making even more pictures to look at to reference this upgrade unless there was something that stood out. It didn't happen, there were no surprises, no pictures.
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