Pickup coils

[randy]

Guys,

If your ignition coils are stock, you should see abot 9-10 volts at the coil. Is your ballast resistor in place?

Dan, have you tested the coil wires themselves? On the primaries, the red/white is the common for both, the gray is for 2-3, the orange for 1-4. Use an ohm meter accross the gray and red/white. You should get 1.5 ohms. Do the same on the orange and red/white for the other coil.

Now check the secondaries. pull both plug wires on 1-4 and accross both plug caps, through the coil you should get 15,000 ohms give or take a few thousand. Do the same for coil 2-3.

Also, here's a quick TCI test that I've used. Install 12V bulbs of any size in place of the coils. Plug 'em right in where the coils connect. Crank the engine and they should alternately flash. no flash, no joy. I've found this to be a simpler test and one that can be done in broad daylight, no shocks and no pulling plugs.

HTH

Randy

[randy]

Oh, one more thing. Not specific to this thread, but in a general sense very important about the TCI box.

In the infinite wisdom of the Yamaha engineers, or maybe Hitachi is more to blame here, they made sure to seal the top of the TCI box with a rubber gasket to keep out moisture, I suppose.

That was a very good idea, because solid state electronics and moisture get along very well and in the long run the moisture causes failures on solder joints.

But they should have coordinated with the engineering department that was assigned to design the BOTTOM of the box, because they left a gaping hole in it to let moisture in, I suppose.

Those of you who have had the box open know what I mean. I'd be interested to hear some feedback on this from those of you who have opened your boxes. Have you sealed the hole?

Randy

[DEmily]

Randy,
I have accell coils in which are just a few months old. The coils them self check out at 3.5 ohms.
I will continue to test and update.

[randy]

Dan,

3.5 ohms on the primaries. What about the secondaries, the side that connects to the spark plugs?

By the way, with 3.5 ohm coils you can ditch the ballast resistor.

Randy

[DEmily]

Randy,

I already remove the balast resistor. You all helped me hook up these coils. But heres someting that don't make much F*#%ing sense. I slammed down a ton of beers last night in anger and got good and buzzed. Went to sleep, got up, went out to the bike, hit the start and all four plug are blowing a blue blaze???? put all the plugs back in and varooom!! What the Hell!!!

[randy]

Seems to me, that with all of your testing and plugging and un-plugging you inadvertently cleaned your dirty connections.

Congratulations!

Now, go back out there and clean them for real. After you clean each one, apply dielectric grease to KEEP them clean.

Randy

[Ken Talbot]

You will get a good reading a lot of the time from broken wires, just like a bike will run fine most of the time with broken wires. It is only when things are wiggling around and flexing that the break will separate enough to lose contact. Then, with a bit more wiggling, the break closes up, you have continuity, and everything appears normal again. When you're ckecking the wires, you can actually give them a very good pull. If they separate with a 5 or 10 pound pull, then they were broken in the first place. Consider how much weight a new piece of wire that size can hold. Can you rig your tester so you can have both hands free for pulling at the wires as you do the test?

[DEmily]

Randy & Ken,

Thanks for the advice. I just got back from the parts house. I am going to replace the wires all the way to the box. I am not even going to mess with it anymore. I've said it before on this site. I am not much for patching things. If the wires have several breaks I'm just going to rerun the wires. I'll check the wires that are up close to the pickups, but I am done messing around. I want to ride. My wife just finished the motor cycle safety course and has her license now. She is out riding!!! I am sitting in the driveway. No more messing around, it will be fixed

Thanks for all the help. You all are the best!!

[DEmily]

Randy,

I reran the wires for the pickup coils and the bike ran fine for about a half a mile. 1 and 4 dropped off again. I pulled up in the drive, ripped off the seat and pulled the tci box. I braved my fears of that nasty black box and openned it up. I re soldered all the solder points and put it back on. Varooom! it fired up on all four. Drove the hell out of it and it just kept asking for more. I have driven the bike some in the past month. I only have about 180 miles on the new motor but I cannot remember it running so smooth.


I'm crossing and hoping you were correct, but about cold solder joints, but at this point it looks like that was the deal. I am a happy biker now!!!

[randy]

You see, no magic at all. In fact, as electronics go, these boxes are very forgiving to the inexperienced solderer. The components are very robust. But, when they do fail, man they fail BAD.

Glad to hear you're back on the road. As you can tell, I'm still wrenching.

Cheers,

Randy.

[Ken Talbot]

That's great news, Dan! With any luck now you'll be through with the 'expense' side of this issue and on to the enjoyment side. Get a few good miles and rides in and your mind will forget all about the expense...

[steelcat]

Dan
Congratulations. I hope that you will have a lot a safe & fun riding this summer. You have put a lot of work into your ride this year, just happy to hear that you are up & running.The weather should be improving out that direction soon, get out & ride.

[DEmily]

Thanks all for the congrants!
I've been riding all day! The BIGDOG is running real good! Still gotta a problem with the carb on number four though. It is running rich and adjusting the pilot screw does absolutley nothing to the engine. I even swapped another carb I had and it still does not adjust. Even turing the pilot screw in all the way does nothing. Maybe the bowl vent T is plugged on that side. I'll have to take it off and take a look. Otherwise, it runs awesome!
I can see why you all love these bikes.

Thanks again