I seem to recall a problematic run of alternators....

[John Schmidt]

Does anyone happen to have that info? I think it was a period of a couple years during which those alternators eventually had a specific problem, sticks in my addled brain that it had something to do with the winding breaking. Curiosity only...not an issue I'm dealing with at the moment!

[vanagon40]

According to Ken Heming of Motorcycle Alternator Repair Service:

In 1995 HITACHI moved their manufacturing from JAPAN to CHINA, since then they have been producing bad alternators. Broken rotor windings or burned up rotor coils from inferior wire and insulation. I have rebuilt over 800  GL1500 alternators and 95% were later models.

Wayback Machine Link
 
Ken passed away last year and the MARS website http://myplace.frontier.com/~hemi-roid/
is gone. It can be accessed through an archive service (e.g., Wayback Machine)

[old2soon]

        The one I sent to M A R S I called him bout a week or so later-did the exchange thing-he informed me some windings in the stator had broken. He also said some times the rotor some times the stator. Inferior chinee wire he stated. Yup-been there done that no T shirt! RIDE SAFE.