First coil of the season. Almost forgot how to do it....
Looks like you haven't missed a beat.Almost forgot how to do it....
A Honda with the heart of a XS650 love it.Never say die....
Honda 4 rotor... went to take it apart and the ring plate was stuck fast. Kept adding force 'till it finally let go....
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Yeah, not exactly the "give" I was hoping for. I figured out what happened... somewhere in it's past the outer ring was damaged and recut. I'm guessin' they chucked it up in a lathe with a shaft and centering cones. That flared the center threaded flange just enough (.013") to effectively "rivet" the plate in place. I was doomed from the start.
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Anyway, while debating how to break the news to the customer, it dawned on me that the plate looked close to the same size as an XS650 ring plate. Dug around my spares and found one. I had to cut the flare off the end of the rotor and the XS plate fell right into position. It's also about a 1/16" larger in diameter and.... it has 6 mount holes vs. the Honda's 4. The copper rings however, were identical.... sumbich... maybe this'll work after all.
Finished taking the rotor apart and marked and drilled 6 holes to match the XS plate. Threaded them with a 3X.5mm tap.... which was quiet nerve wracking btw....
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Cut a 1/16" off the OD of it and wound a 21awg coil for it and put it all back together....
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Good as new. Where there's a will there's a way.
Was that vertical or horizontal?Back when I was working on airplanes I used to tell my pilots "90 days or 90 feet".... whichever comes first.
Yes.Was that vertical or horizontal?
Very interesting discovery Jim. Yes, I tried to clean up a rotor plate and got nothing but a mess of oily smelling burlap and copper foil that was once pressed into the shape of a rotor plate. In my travails that year I managed to mess up the plate on a Rick's alternator that had a bad keyway and didn't go onto the shaft far enough. It dragged on the alternator frame, destroying the copper rings and magnet. I did manage to clean up the rings an put in a neo magnet, but the bike became hard to start and kickbacked heartily. This went away when I put the oem plate on the Rick's rotor. I found out later the neo magnet was installed with the opposite pole out compared to the oem rotor. I wonder if it was matching the background magnetic field of the rotor and getting drowned out? Can you alter the polarity of the field by running the current in the opposite direction?This all came from this thread. I'm including it here to hopefully help anyone with similar problems.
'81 TCI bike...
"If I ground out the green wire for one of the brushes the “slap test” is very good but the bike will not rev up (sounds like it hits a rev limiter anything past an idle). When I disconnect the ground for the green wire the “slap test” is bad (no ground to one of the brushes) but the bike revs up just fine. Ive also tried both of the regulators I have."
This is commonly known as the "weak magnet syndrome." The theory is that the TCI trigger magnet is so weak the rotors charging magnetism is drowning it out, causing the ignition to misfire.
More details....
"Wiring harness is chopped down to bare minimum due to this being a bobber build. Rotor is from mikesxs (slip rings continuity reads 5.3ohms off bike). Stator is also from mikesxs (phase wires read 1.0 ohms between all 3 white wires). One regulator is a mikesxs and one seems to be stock (no change between either one)."
I referred him to this thread where a similar issue was discussed.... and it's resolution here.
I rewound a TCI rotor and sent it his way. Yesterday I received a reply from him...
"Jim I received the part and recently had the time to install it. Problem fixed!! Ive taken the bike on 4 good rides and no issues. I can't thank you enough for the help."
Someone 6 or 8 yrs ago tried to clean up damaged slip rings on a Chinese rotor. Don't recall who it was.... @MacMcMacmac perhaps?
Anyway, when they chucked it up in a lathe, they cut through the copper rings almost immediately. "Paper thin" I believe was the description used.
The copper rings on the factory rotor are about 1.5mm thick... a fair bit more than "paper thin."
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The gist of all this is that I believe the copper rings block most of (enough of) the charging system magnetism. Enough so that the TCI sensor (pickup) can cleanly read the trigger magnet, allowing both normal ignition operation and charging. The Chinese (Mikes) rotors appear to be hit and miss. Perhaps poor quality control on the copper thickness? Dunno...
But, this is the 4th case I'm aware of where a stock rewound rotor fixed a problem such as this, and as far as I know, no cases where it didn't fix this issue (with the Chinese rotor).
So don't throw away those factory TCI rotors. Ya never know when you might need 'em.
Here's a video showing the blocking affect of the copper ring. It was while I was testing for something else that I noticed it.