2001 Valkyrie Alternator

[valktrike]

My '01 Valkyrie has burned up 4 alternators in the past two years. I replaced the original with an aftermarket one that was new. It lasted almost a year. The next two lasted less than 6 months each. The most recent one lasted 4 days. I have disconnected all accessories and just run the stock headlight. The battery is fairly new and takes a charge with my charger. Any pointers on what may be causing these alternators to go bad?

[da prez]

Start with basics. Clean all grounds.  If you have a competent rebuilder , have them locate the failure in the alternator . Check for shorts in the system.  After reinstall of a good one , re-hook  accessories with a jumper wire one at a time. Un-hook if good. It may take a while.
 Let us know.

                                 da prez

[valktrike]

Thank you. I will definitely check the grounds. That's about the only thing I haven't done so far.

[Bagger John - #3785]

Stock lighting, or did you add any extras? How about other electrical accessories?

[Kep]

Did you replace the battery when you replaced the alternator the first time ?

[3W-lonerider]

had that happen to me quite a few years ago. went threw 4 alternators in 1 month. turned out i had an assessory  that the relay had went bad and hung in. putting a draw on the battery. bike started normally everytime i went to start it. but the draw was bad enough that it made the alternator work double time after the bike was started. after finding the issue i did not have any problems afterwards. i would definitely have that battery load tested. easiest way to kill an alternator is running a bike with a weak battery or a bad battery.

[gordonv]

As already suggested, disable all the extras. But before you start putting things back on, insure that you have an inline fuse for each that meets it's need, so it should blow.

A better way too is to check what Amp draw each one is with your meter.

[luftkoph]

No matter who sells those aftermarket alternators, or what name they put on them they most likely bought them on allibaba where if you buy something like 100 of them they will sell them to you for $49 ea. Make what you will of the quality that you may or may not get.

You could also buy a oem 1500 Goldwing alternator and rotate the housing to fit a Valkyrie.

Toledo east honda sells an oem goldwing alternator for $382

[valktrike]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. The headlight is OEM. I had some halogen driving lights on it but after the 2nd burned up alternator, i took them off, suspecting that was the problem and replaced them with LED. I also have a cheap amplifier with 4 speakers that i plugged my cell phone into. I'll unhook everything that's not OEM and see what happens. And i'll try the ground checking that da Prez suggested. i'll see if a new battery will help too. i have a multimeter but it appears to only have capabilities up to 20 amps. we'll see what happens.