I just finished putting a '68 sportster back together. It supposedly sat in pieces since '03, and now I'm not getting any lights. When I put the positive cable of a battery to the armature post and groung it to the frame my lights work, but when it's running nothing. I took it apart and cleaned everything, the brushes look good, the armature looks good and I polorized it and still nothing. Any ideas?

 

What is the condition of brushes, brush springs and commutator, along with contacts in voltage regulator? All wired correctly as well?

 

Everything looks good as far as I can tell. The brushes still look to have life, the springs seem to be fine. As far as the wiring goes, I didn't go any further than taking the armature out. But I did clean that and also cleaned out the grooves.

 

Disconnec the generator from the voltage regulator. With the bike running at idle you should be getting 2 to 4 volts off the A field post. If you're getting that your generator is fine. With the regulator hooked up and running you should be getting 13 to 14 volts at the battery. My guess is that it's the regulator since you had lights with the fresh battery.

 

Sorry, I didn't specify that it's an xlch. I used a 12 volt donor battery to polorize the generator and check the wiring. The only other wires are from the regulator to the headlight and taillight/brake light. It's as simple as it gets kicker only, I'm just tired of throwing money at this bike.