I bought a cheap Harbor Freight trickle charger and let it charge overnite, so the batt will be fully charged. I'll do a crank test and check the voltage. I'm going to p/u a Radio Shack rectifier and heat sink and hook it up. It's cheap enough to try out. After messing with the system and reading up here, I'm pretty comfortable with the wiring. ( Ylw & Brn = AC, Red = +, Ground = - ).
The neutral switch started working again so it probably is just gunked up. The clutch also seems to be dragging so I'm going to have pull the left cover and do some cleaning, but that's another adventure.
I'm off for Ramen & beer tonight so all the testing will have to wait till later. YUM!!
PS. I found the screw the next morning... right under the bike!!!
Test OK, but no voltageSUCCESS!!! Ok, so I check the batt after letting it fully charge a day or two, and now when I run it around 3000 rpm I'm getting 13 volts. Better but not great. Cranking it drops down to around 10.5. I picked up a 25a rectifier from a local electronics shop and made some pigtails to wire it in. Now I'm 13v at idle and up to 14+v when I have the high beam on. I think that my problem was my rectifier. It drained the batt when I was on vacation and it was weak and barely charging the batt while running.
Thanks for all the help and advice!!!!! Thanks 1,000,000!!! The beer and ramen helped give me a clear direction!!
A couple lessons learned: 1) Always test with your battery FULLY charged. The battery is an integral part of the system, not just a voltage storage device. 2) With the bike off, leave the Red wire connected and disconnect the Yellow and Brown wires from the rectifier and check the YLW and BRN terminals for voltage to ground. You should have NONE. My rectifier/ diodes bench tested good w/ my meter but still it backfed voltage. A $3 rectifier was a quick easy fix.
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