new guy- old bike

[78whiteorbs]

Hello all this is my first post! Hope it is in the right area as the other sub boards seem ghost townish-

So, I picked up a 79 Xs1100 with a sidecar! Hadnt ran in at least 3 years says the PO but was in a heated building . While trying to find info on the sidecar I actually found a build thread from the original owner who did all the sidecar work,which is pretty cool I think.

here is a link to site with pix:

http://hahnda.blogspot.com/2005/01/1...watsonian.html

http://webpages.charter.net/kbhahn/sidecar1.html

so fast forward :

Got the bike home and it has a marine type battery in the trunk of the sidecar wired for entire bike which I though different but this is my first sidecar bike so what do I know (after emailing the guy who owns a bike shop now ,he said this is pretty common in sidecars) . Hooked a fully charged battery up and it was turning over and getting some intermitant weakish spark-
Also the headlight and gauge lights were not coming on.

I popped the freshly rebuilt carbs on with a brand new set of manifolds that came with it and cranked it over and over and not even a sputter. sprayed some carb cleaner in each bore and still nothing .

Let it sit scratched head. Has compression check , has fuel check, has weak spark..... so I pulled the leads of all the plug caps and trimmed them replaced and still no joy.

Then a clue ! Removed plug cap and went to start it with just the plug lead straight to the engine to see sparkage it sparked a few times and oddly the headlight and the gauge lights came on and it sputtered a bit .

Then I was distracted and tried it again and the headlight would not come on and the gauge lights were dead. Sooooooo when the head light and gauge lights are on it was firing enough to stumble over which was wayyyyyyy more than it was doing which was NOTHING before.

Seems electrical problem.... I tested and it is getting juice to coils . Not sure what else to do next as I have never really worked on a electronic iggy bike just points and such . This bike looks to be in very good

repair otherwise and will clean up nicely if I can get it back up and running -

sorry for the longwinded post but if you got this far thanks for reading !

[slow mo]

welcome !! first post and you have a sidecar?? please tell me you paid $6000.00

[78whiteorbs]

1250 $ which I thought was decent for a non runner with a title and a sidecar.

First sidecar and I am anxious to get it up and running proper so I can get to the fun part of painting and the even funner part of riding !

thanks for the welcome!

[mikubuilder]

welcome, nice looking bike

if it was sitting for any period of time, corrosion sets in in the connectors, make sure to clean ALL connectors(grounds to the frame especially, and all plugs)

then you can check voltage you're getting to TCI, and to ignition coils

also check resistance on ignition coils(primary side-thin wires-should be 1.5 Ohm, secondary winding-ignition wires without caps-should be 15k Ohm, and finally caps itself-their are resistance caps-should be 5k Ohm)

those bikes are notorious for electrical gremlins, so you will have to become a electrician quickly or pay someone a lot of money to do it for you ...

the other common thing is pick up coils, but you say you are getting a spark, just weak, right?

[78whiteorbs]

yes just weak- wiggles wires around everywhere and nothing - First time I removed the cap from one of the wires and tried to see if it'd spark better it did and the bike stumbled and tried to fire up. Headlight came on and gauge lights. Well, guess I am gonna be an electrician dang

here some pix

[sidecarKev]

You need to take some pictures of what it looks like now.

[78whiteorbs]

right on- I will post some tomorrow. The paint isnt as shiny but prolly would buff up nice.

[haywardguy929]

Wow sweet looking ride and sidecar. I keep hearing good things about seafoam and wonder if you should run some through your gas tank seeing as how it sat for a while to help clean up any old gunk hung up. Maybe someone else could shed some light. Welcome and congrats. Good luck with it. Looking forward to seeing it and the progress.

[XJfan1]

As a favor to you i will give you your money back and take that old bike off you hands.I thought it would be worth a try.

[78whiteorbs]

the tank is clean and filters are being ran- caswells liners are the way to go !

XJfan, I have not even had a proper dance with this old girl yet - I have had about 40 bikes and only gave up on one which happened to be a xs650 owned and wired by PAMCO Pete ,inventor of the Pamco ignitions for xs650's and cb750's- this bike had so many relays it was a nightmare... he had some custom stuff going on in that bucket and I spent hours till I just decided to move on. Tracing stock wiring is one hing but custom gremlins is a whole different kind of hell.

[James England]

Once again, I'm green with envy at the price you lot get these bikes for in the USA. Unbelievable. Not fair! I want one at that price. Here, the sidecar would probably cost what you paid for the whole bike

[WMarshy]

Very nice find and welcome to the forum. If you havent done so yet, I recommend taking the right side cover off and looking at the fuse box to see what has been done under there. If its a mess, thats were I would start. Get an updated blade type fuse box and replace those old glass style fuses. If everything looks ok I would go under the tank and up to the ferring to see what kind of splices were made if any to work on that. The fact that you moved a plug wire and the lights came on make me believe there is a bad splice up under the tank area somewhere. Good luck and post pictures!

[78whiteorbs]

Thanks guys-

The bike belonged to SidecarKev (2 owners ago)and he did like a whole frame off renovation(this was like in 04 or 06) and reading though his old posts last night had quite a time with a ticking head which he eventually remedied. He did a great job painting the motor and such .

Well, the fuses have indeed been upgraded to blade style. There are only a few splices in the harness and they look really clean . Will investigate more and take photos today.

[conquest87tsi]

If the colors on your bike were reversed, black with red accents. I could definetly see Batman and Robin riding around on it haha. I don't think I've ever seen a fairing like that.

[78whiteorbs]

Yes, the fairing is no longer with the bike it has a round headlight and I dig it .
Looks like the plexi/lexan was replaced craftily with ,painted pressboard perhaps??? Same kinda stuff they make pegboard out of -
I will be replaceing the plexi on the car and using the piece as a template But may mak a little taller dunno-

Batmobile! ha !

I dont think its a bad combo but I am gonna go with a different color combo after I can get it running that is.