Brought the VFR (1999) to Galway during the week and when I came out after a bite to eat the battery was dead. Called a mate that lived in Galway and jumped it off his cage. Stayed running and lights and all worked no problem. Left running for a few min and knocked it off to check and it did start itself again – held onto the jump leads though!

Drove back to the hotel where wife was staying with her family (my reason for going to Galway in first place). Tried to start it and battery didn’t have enough juice. Decided to wait until morning to drive home in case of more problems and also didn’t fancy having to use the headlight in case it killed the battery totally and stalled the bike while driving.

It’s a new enough battery, new last year, and haven’t had any problem with it before this.
Recently though I’ve only taken the bike for short spins around 20 to 30 min but this was the first spin over an hour for a good while so there could have been a problem with the electrical system and it wouldn’t have shown up.

Is this more than likely the regulator/rectifier problem that these yokes have? Or could it be the stator – I think I read that these give trouble/need replacing also – although that was on an American site and they seem to look at every part as being a ‘Service item’ it seems :rolleyes2: so wouldn’t pass much heed on this.

Is there anything else that could have been running and drained the battery? I noticed on the spin home next day that the coolant temp went up to 100c when stopped at traffic lights in Claregalway, didn’t hear fan come on. Didn’t notice that before, thought there might be a problem with the cooling fan. If there was a fault with them and they were stuck on the night before or burnt out – could that have caused the dead battery?

I’m not a big fan of the ‘start replacing parts until the bike works again’ method of fixing, want to find the actual problem first.

Haven’t had time to tackle it with a multi meter yet but the system is definitely charging a little. Once home from Galway I knocked off bike and it started again itself – only had the park light on for ride home not the dip beam.

Opinions or ideas? Where should I go to get a replacement reg/rectifier and what one – just replace what’s there with another of the same?