starting switch wiring question

[PMKXS11]

Took all my grounds off, cleaned em, and put dielectric grease in the threads and am still getting .1 ohm.

Here is the battery negative to frame ground



Here is the engine ground strap

[DiverRay]

OK, back to basics.....
Use a car battery and jumper cables for the starter. Leave the battery on the bike to power the TCI and COILS. I would bolt the ground from the car battery to the engine, not the frame. Then use a #8 wire from the battery and touch the hot lug on the starter to turn it over. IF you do not get any spark that way, then you may have problems with the TCI.
Oh, and I would have all 4 NEW plugs in the engine, and starting fluid sprayed VERY LIGHTLY into the intakes, as I know you don't have the carbs installed. You should have a pop or four as the engine turns over.

[crazy steve]

Here is the engine ground strap

The battery ground looks ok, but the ground strap is on the wrong side of the bracket which limits the conducting surface area....

[motoman]

The battery ground looks ok, but the ground strap is on the wrong side of the bracket which limits the conducting surface area....

Not that it would make any difference, but originally the battery ground strap bolted to the frame lug joining the short ground strap that connects to motor.

[crazy steve]

Not on the ones I've seen; the battery ground cable connects to the frame right below the bolt that holds the tool box in, to the right of the battery. The factory cable isn't long enough to go anywhere else....

[jetmechmarty]

Took all my grounds off, cleaned em, and put dielectric grease in the threads and am still getting .1 ohm.

Dielectric grease is an insulator, not a conductor. The same thing goes for paint. Did you clean it off before you hooked up the grounds?

[PMKXS11]

Dielectric grease is an insulator, not a conductor. The same thing goes for paint. Did you clean it off before you hooked up the grounds?

Oops you're totally right, cleaned em and used the battery out of my VW and still nothing. It still sounds very hard to crank.

Here's a quick video

[motoman]

Not on the ones I've seen; the battery ground cable connects to the frame right below the bolt that holds the tool box in, to the right of the battery. The factory cable isn't long enough to go anywhere else....

Stand corrected.....CRS, so I had to go look:

[TopCatGr58]

I'm using an inline spark plug tester

That's fine, but are BOTH plug wires from the same coil connected to the plugs/engine? IF the other end that does not have the inline tester on it is not connected to the plug and attached to the engine/head then you will NOT see a spark, the circuit can't complete, no place for it to go once it reaches the tester.

And yes, I was going to comment on the dielectric grease but Marty covered it first.

T.C.

[PMKXS11]

All plugs are threaded in besides cylinder 4, that one has the tester on it. Dielectric grease issue has been taken care of.

[PMKXS11]

Anyone else have any thoughts? I have a new TCI on the way, but it sucks being stuck at this point with how much time, money and effort I've put in this bike.

I'm probably going to end up running a small capacitor to feed the TCI a constant 12V during starting, because it seems that every battery I use, drops below 10V during cranking.

[crazy steve]

You may need a new starter. If all starter connections are good (you did remove paint/clean the mounting pads on the case where the starter bolts down, right?), the starter should draw about 90 amps when cranking. Poor connections or a worn starter can cause the amps to climb sharply to where even a good battery can't maintain voltage. Try boosting the bike with a car battery and if cranking speed and voltage goes up, seriously look at the starter.

[DiverRay]

If the battery drops below 10 on all you have tried, you may still have a problem with the ground/hot wires. I would try making new battery to frame to engine ground wires from 8 gauge wire. Then make sure the battery positive wire to the fuse block is at least 14 gauge. Also, check all connections on the positive side, loosen and re-tighten the bolts ans screws between the battery and the starter.
If you have an ammeter, check and see how much the starter draws, it may need brushes/rebuild and so it draws too many amps. To get around this, take a car battery and connect the ground to the engine, and use the positive from that battery to turn the starter. No it will NOT blow anything on the bike as long as it is connected neg. to engine, positive to positive on the battery or positive to turn the starter.
Hope this helps!

Dang, Steve types faster than I do!

[PMKXS11]

Tried the new TCI and still getting the same thing.

Here's something I tried for kicks:
I sprayed some starting fluid in the intakes, turned the bike over, and by hand "flashed" the coils like before to test em, and I got it to fire (popped a few times). So I'm going to eliminate coils, wires and plugs for good.

I have an idea, but I need some input from the gurus here.
So there is supposed to be 720ohms resistance across both pick up coils, which is what I'm getting. What should happen to my reading when the coil "picks up" the little nub? Is there any way I can test if the TCI is picking up the crank location?

I threw on another engine to frame ground wire, from a breather cap bolt to a threaded hole by where the rear brake light switch is mounted. I also put a 14 gauge wire from the battery positive to the fuse box. All connections, both neg and pos, got loosened and re tightened.

At this point I'm not terribly worried about the starter, there are ways around the low cranking voltage. My top priority is to get the damn thing to fire. I'm using my Harley battery to turn the bike over and the ballistic one to run the TCI to keep constant voltage.

[crazy steve]

There really isn't much that can be tested beyond what you've already done. You can check for voltage at the pinouts on the TCI as per the manual, if that checks ok 'but if the ignition system is still inoperative, replace the TCI unit' is the quote from the manual. If you're an electronics whiz and have access to an O-scope you could probably test further, but this is far beyond the tools/ability of nearly all.

I still can't help but think that you have a bad connection somewhere. One ground connection that has to be good is the black wire at the 8 pin plug at the TCI. This should read zero ohms to ground, preferably check this to the negative battery post. This the 'other' half of the coil circuit and if you have any resistance in this, the coils probably won't fire.

About your only other option is to find a local XSer and 'test ' your TCIs on a known running bike.