Hello, John Talley here with partzilla.com.
Today we're going to be looking at the electrical system on our 2007 Honda TRX 400 EX.
Specifically, we're going to start looking at the battery and the charging system.
It's a fairly simple system that is basically three different parts that you want to look
at: the battery itself, your regulator rectifier, and then behind this cover is going to be
a stator.
So what we're going to do is take measurements for each part of the system and make sure
they're within spec.
So let me grab the meters we're going to use which is going to be a Snap-On meter.
You want to make sure that whatever meter you use has what they call a diode function,
because we're going to be looking inside the regulator rectifier to make sure that that
full circuit rectification is working correctly.
The other thing we're going to use is just a battery tester, and that will tell us the
condition of our battery.
So let's get started.
Alright guys, one of the first things we need to do is go ahead and take a just a static
reading of the battery voltage at rest.
With the vehicle shut off we just want to see where it's sitting right now.
So we want to set our meter to volts DC, just two lines straight across.
And she's reading about 12.21, 12.2.
Well, I know it's a 12 volt battery, but that's not really where we want to be.
A full charged battery you want closer to 12.8 maybe even 13 volts.
It will start the machine, so what I want to do is go ahead and start it up and see
what kind of charging voltage we're getting out of it.
So...
We want it to get to is a little over 14, it's coming on up and even at idle 14.2 is about
where we would want it.
Alright, so so far the charging system seems to be doing what it's supposed to be doing,
but I'm a little suspect of this battery.
so what we want to do next is put an actual battery tester on it that is battery specific.
So we're going to disconnect the leads going to the machine and get it hooked up to this
tester and take a reading and see where we stand.
So let's go ahead and get this one completely disconnected from the machine.
Go ahead and do your negative side first.
Then pop off your positive.
Alright, this is reading about the same as the voltometer, about 12.1, 12.18 somewhere
in there.
So what we want to do is select which model battery it is, YTX9-DS and go ahead and let
it go through a full test.
Alright, it's telling me I need to replace the battery because its state of health is
zero percent.
Charge?
About 40 percent.
So yeah, it'll continue to start the machine but for how many more times?
Probably not many.
The service life of this battery is done.
So I'm going to go ahead and remove it from the machine, going to head to the stockroom,
pick up a new one, show you how to get it serviced, get it charged up and then we'll
get it installed and see where we end up.
Alright guys, I just went to the stockroom to pick up the battery we're going to need
for this.
It's a batter made by Yuasa and the exact model number is YTX9-BS.
And the real trick with this one it is what they call a dry glass mat, so there's actually
mat inside of this battery casing. and to that you add the electrolyte.
It'll go in and fill in all those voids and then charge the plates inside of there.
Now the real trick with this battery is yes, partzilla.com can sell you the battery, but
we can't ship the electrolyte.
So if you do decide to buy a battery from us you'll have to pick up your electrolyte
somewhere locally.
Other thing you're going to need is a charger.
Chances are you don't have a five hundred dollar Christie charger sitting in your garage.
What you can do is just get something as simple as a battery tender or one of these little
automatic chargers from Yuasa.
These can charge it from a starting point, and the good part about these is you can leave
it attached to your vehicle in the off season and it'll take care of the battery and make
sure it's up to charge you know, when you're not using it.
Because the last thing you want to do is let the battery go dead, get flat, and then it
sulfates and you've just wasted a battery.
Alright, the first thing we need to do is go ahead and pull this seal, take this cap
off the electrolyte, and just punch it straight down on the battery.
Alright, it'll take about ten minutes for the electrolyte to go into the battery, then
you want to let it sit for about 20 to 30 minutes so it really gets absorbed into that
mat.
Once that time has passed, we can go ahead and hook it up to the charger and charge it
for about an hour and that should get us ready to go back on the machine.
So I'll be back in a few minutes once she gets through filling up.
Alright guys, we've had the electrolyte in the battery for about 30 minutes now so it
should be all absorbed into that glass mat. all we need to do now is go on and connect
it to our charger.
On this particular charger I need to go ahead and set the amperage that's going to be fed
into it.
5.5 to nine.
I want to charge for about an hour, and off she goes.
Now granted this big machine can get it done in about an hour.
If you're using a small battery tender like one of these two it's going to take a little
bit longer, so be prepared to wait in between three and four hours for one of these two
to get the job done.
So, I'm going to let this charge, then we'll get the cap put back on it and get it reinstalled
in the machine.
So, I'll see you in about an hour.
Alright, let's go ahead and disconnect from the charger.
And let's get our cap back-- get our cap on, period.
Alright, let's go ahead and set our meter.
DC volts.
Go ahead and connect up and let's see where we ended up.
Should be around 13 volts.
Yep. 13.01.
Let me flip this around and I'll let you take a peek at it.
Getting the battery out it's only held in by this one bracket.
You've got a 10mm down at the bottom and then there's one at the top kinda hidden under
the wiring harness.
Right there.
And the bracket just pulls away.
From there, the whole battery just slides out and then it'll actually come straight
out of its case.
Just like that.
Alright we've got our battery sealed up and ready to go.
We just need to go ahead and pop her in her case, slide her in there.
But before I hook it up to the machine let's test it one more time and see what its health
is.
Get those connected.
Run our test one more time.
And that's what we want: 100% health or very close to it, charged all the way.
Alright, she has tested out exactly like we want.
What I'm going to do now is go ahead now and connect it back up, positive first, then the
negative, and then put the strap that holds it in place on the side.
What I want to go ahead and look into after that is what if the battery tested out alright?
I mean what would you need to look for if it wasn't charging properly?
So we're going to look at the rectifier as well as the stator.
But let's first get it back connected up and then I'm going to show you which wires to
look at on each one of those pieces to see if they're functioning as they should.
Alright, this is a very simple charging system.
Basically what you have is just a single-phase output on your stator and it goes back to
your regulator rectifier which converts it into 12 volts DC or a little more than that
actually.
But DC voltage from AC voltage which charges your battery.
Alright, if the battery checked out like it's supposed to and you still weren't getting
charged, what we need to check first is the output of the stator voltage.
And what that actually is is going to be AC voltage.
The way you can get to it is using just a pair of these little what they call back probes.
And they actually go in between the rubber insulator and the wire itself.
Now don't pierce the coating or the covering of the wire because we just want to put it
between the rubber and the wire itself.
Get a couple of our leads.
Polarity isn't going to be in play here because it's AC voltage that we're measuring.
Got it clamped in.
Alright let's set the meter to AC volts, start it up.
Alright, so that's telling us that we are getting AC voltage, which we already knew.
But if that was two or three volts then you would know that you probably have an issue
with the stator itself.
Other than that, we can check the diodes on the inside of the regulator rectifier.
And how you do that is switch it over to diode mode.
What you're going to do is forward and reverse bias the diodes.
Alright, now once you get your leads in there and those back probes stuck in, you're going
to set about right here.
They're making contact.
And what you're looking for is a forward bias of the diode going from that yellow wire over
to the red.
And it's reading . 499, which is basically point five volts.
That's what forward bias is on a diode.
Check the pink wire, you should get about the same reading.
Right there.
So that tells me that the diode-- the diodes rather-- inside the rectifier are good.
We already looked at the output voltage in AC, and it was good as well so we pretty much
expected that.
But, if your diodes read like they're supposed to, the voltage is off up front and that'll
pretty much tell you you're going to need to open up that case or that cover and look
at your stator.
Alright, with all the readings checking out this is pretty much ready to go.
Well listen , as you're making your measurements and things don't match up like they're supposed
to if you need a rectifier or a stator or one of those chargers that I showed you earlier,
come see us at partzilla.com.
And if you have any other questions, just leave them in the comments section below and
I'll do my best to answer them.
So until then, see you next time.