Electrical S.O.S for my 1980 XS1100

[songs4sale07]

Okay... so I recently had all my wires taken out and taken apart I followed a very simple wire diagram from this sight that showed me all that I needed to keep and the stuff that i could get rid of. I know that not the way to do if your going to keep it stock but simplifying the electrics of my bike was my goal. the bike fired fine and ran fine when I pulled her into the garage. I got rid of everything I needed to get rid of and put everything back together. Now I can't get spark from the 2 and 3 coil! PM me your address and I can send you the diagram before, the one that I used to modify my harness and what I ended up with. I can't seem to figure out how to post them on here. Basically what i did when I couldn't get spark was swap my grey negative from 2 and 3 coil with the orange negative from 1 and 4. and then 2 and 3 had spark but not 1 and 4. the only thig that makes me curious is that I didn't think the coil could go bad just sitting in the garage for a month or so. I'm checking on the pickup coil wires tonight to see if maybe something got disconnected but I kinda doubt it. anyway i need help and know that i'm not explaining myself very good. thanks for looking at this. Z

[DGXSER]

Best advice I can give you is to work your way form one end of the spark trail to the other. Start at the plugs, make sure they are good and one did not fall on the ground and have the electrode bent all the way to close the gap completely shorting out that coil circuit and killing both cylinders DAMHIKIJK...next check both plug wires and on the plugs (yeah again DAMHIK). Then check plug caps. Then check the coils, check for signal form the TCI to the coils, check for signal from pickups to TCI.

Somewhere along that chain something is broken.

[tw1980]

Hmmm,I'd start by making sure I had 12 volts to each coil.Then check the wires to the tci unit.If those things checkout then I would move to the pickup wires.If everything checks out to that point then it gets a bit more complicated.You could have a bad coil or tci but that would be unusual.If you post your wiring diagram maybe we can be of more help. Terry

[fredintoon]

- - - Now I can't get spark from the 2 and 3 coil! - - - Basically what i did when I couldn't get spark was swap my grey negative from 2 and 3 coil with the orange negative from 1 and 4. and then 2 and 3 had spark but not 1 and 4. the only thig that makes me curious is that I didn't think the coil could go bad just sitting in the garage for a month or so. I'm checking on the pickup coil wires tonight to see if maybe something got disconnected - - -

Hi songs,
seems both the 1 & 4 and the 2 & 3 sides of the coil work when they are connected to the orange wire but neither work when connected to the gray wire.
Betcha the coil is fine. Suspect the gray wire!

[songs4sale07]

hmmm...

well I traced everything from the pickup coils back last night and everything there checked out. If it is the gray wire that is causeing my problems how would I fix that? do I need to get a whole new section of wire harness? I'm not even sure what gauge wire that is to replace it with. I talked to andreasweiss last night and he's sending me down another set of coils just in case.

-side note if anybody ever needs anything for their XS I would recommend AndreasWiess very friendly, informative, helpful, and very very good prices on his parts.-

I think your right though fredintoon the gray wire running from the coil to the TCI must be bad. But I can tell you that it doesn't have any visible breaks or wear or burns or anything like that so I don't know what could be the problem... but I'll check it out.

Thanks everybody for all the suggestions and advise. please feel free to continue responding to this. I wont feel like I'm outta the woods until I'm on the road riding to andreas' shop for a cold one from the megafridge. thanks again. -Kracker-

[psycoreefer]

Did you check your pickup coil wires? If the TCI isn't getting a signal from the pickup coils that wire would "appear" to be bad because the TCI would never signal the coil to fire.

Also try taking the plugs off the tci and gently bending the tabs on the "female" side of the spade connectors down to ensure you've got a good connection at the TCI, I had this problem with my bike when I first got it.

[bikerphil]

If all the wiring checks out, you might have a broken solder joint in the TCI itself. If thats the case, it can be reheated. Try testing the TCI as described in the service manual.

[clcorbin]

Are you visually inspecting the wires or are you ohming them out with a meter? Visual will ONLY tell you so much. A wire that looks brand new could still have an internal break and you would never find it visually.

[songs4sale07]

If all the wiring checks out, you might have a broken solder joint in the TCI itself. If thats the case, it can be reheated. Try testing the TCI as described in the service manual.

My Manual doesn't tell me how to check the TCI it actually says to have a pro do it but I'm confident that you guys can coach me through a bit to figure out if my TCI is bad.

I was thinking about it and in the process of the rebuild it did take a nasty spil at one point. I went a head and ordered a new from Andreas today I should probably have it monday. but If I can fix this one or at least find out for sure if its bad I would appreciate any help on the topic.

thanks again guys all of you really are the cream of he crop when it come to the biker world. Kracker.

Also Anybody know of any XS baskets that were running when parked in Washington State? I'm gonna need another project pretty soon.

[Hepcat]

One tip when checking for broken wires...try to test them with as little movement of the wire as possible to unhook the end. If the wire itself has broken within the insulation, you can end up pushing the broken wires into each other and making a bad wire look good. I ended up with this problem on my kickstand switch years ago...I'd unhook the wire and lift the end up even with the seat to make it easier to test, and it checked out ok.

If you absolutely can't find a problem, you can check the wire while flexing it, (I hope I can describe this in an understandable way) route it up between your ring and middle finger and down between middle and pointer finger...then slowly move the bent portion down the wire by sliding your fingers along. it's not a guaranteed method. You can sometimes get the break to show up by putting tension on the wire ends while you test it...it can stretch the insulation and increase the gap between the wire parts.

Good luck!
Jon

[oldyam80sg]

If you look for members do a search for Randy-He is the TCI guru and I'm not just saying that.He has a link on his profile to show you how to check the TCI-When he had a house in PA i met him one day and he confirmed something was wrong with my TCI unit.It couldn't be fixed and bought one off of him.