I honestly cant think why i called one of the pins an earth.. But i have checked all three terminals as the service manual describes and as you have described (which is how i wouldve done it before reading the manual) turns out the stator is ok, i just had the meter in the wrong range and forgot to take the meter resistance into account when measuring. I got a bit spanner happy after a couple of beers and ended up taking the housing off along with the engine crash bars, the belly pan, and everything else, without thinking to check the actual output at the plug first but its at least given me chance to muck out all the nooks and crannies behind the cylinder, which ive been meaning to do for a while.

Anyway, theres nothing wrong with the stator and ive got hold of some better info on troubleshooting the whole system, so i'm gonna try that. After ive rebuilt it all lol.

Cheers for the tips, hopefully she should be working again after a few hours swearing at it tonight.

Joe