I've been tracing the wiring to find a general lights out/no electrics fault, and found the rectifier when tested according to the manual shows no circuit beween ANY of the terminals - the manual says any multimeter besides a suzuki tester won't give the correct reading (just buy-our-oem-stuff-bullshit?) but I get nothing on ALL of them... wonder how my bike has been running/charging all this time if it hasn't been working?

another probably related problem was the temp gauge oscillating (when the electrics DO work)


Anyone know if I can expect the rectifier check to work properly (ie get the correct Ohm values) with any old multimeter?

You need to have the meter switched to the diode check function, it should be on or near where the ohms are.

Google what the diode symbol looks like, some basic meters have them incorporated into the resistance check some are independant.

The meter measures the forward voltage bias required to turn on the diode, in this case, 0.6 volt for a silicon diode.