about to ditch the E ignition for points

Ok,

I posted this in my build thread but thought I would post here to get some other points of wisdom. I used a PAMCO on my 1982 build since my TCI was dead and rode it late last summer/fall almost 600 miles in its raw unfinished state with no issues. I put about 150 or more miles after finishing with paint and reassembly with no issues. Once I started cranking up the motor a bit and hit some higher rpms is when the first one fried.

I got the new one in and Pete told me once I hooked it up to check the regulator voltage at 3000rpm. It checked out to 14.5-14.6v at 3000rpm and above...so I put about another 30 miles on it with no issues.

Last night I took it above 5000rpm for the first time with the new pamco and fried it. Luckily I was only about a mile and a quarter from home and I walked it in. Not Happy...extremely frustrating.

When I got home and checked to make sure it was not the coil or plug wires I took the sensor of the PAMCO off and have the same brown burn spot on the back of the transistor that I had last time.

I went out to the barn and grabbed my points and advancer off of the old spare motor I have and started reading what to do to convert to points.

I know I need a ballast resister for the dual output coil and a condenser.

So My question is what kind of condenser can work...is there a non xs650 specific condenser I could use that might be available locally and not have to order something? I've read that TSC has ballast resistors that would work available, but I'm not sure about a condenser.

I will be pursuing points regardless of how the PAMCO situation turns out. Getting stranded twice is enough reason for me to have something mechanical that can be fixed road side even if it doesn't perform quite as well and has it's own little quirks to it. IMHO checking/setting points is not that big of a deal when viewed along with the other standard set of general maintenance requirements.

I just need some advice in terms of changing to points...I don't really want to get into a debate as to the reliability of the PAMCO as I know there are many many people that have never had an issue with it. I was one of those for about 600 miles...now I'm not...I just want to have something that I know I can fix in a pinch.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I believe you have a charging problem. The most sensitive component in your system gets fried first, in your case it was the Pamco. When you change to points, the most sensitive component will be the coil(s), so that is what will fry.

PamcoPete will probably keep giving you new units. I suggest you replace your Pamco and mount (temporarily if need be) a voltmeter on your handlebars so you can see what's happening while riding.

As a first step toward trouble-shooting your charging system I suggest you carefully inspect your wiring and grounds and solder all connections and eliminate as many stab-together connections as possible. You very possibly have an intermittent problem caused by a sometimes-bad connection.

DogBunny said:

I believe you have a charging problem. The most sensitive component in your system gets fried first, in your case it was the Pamco. When you change to points, the most sensitive component will be the coil(s), so that is what will fry.

PamcoPete will probably keep giving you new units. I suggest you replace your Pamco and mount (temporarily if need be) a voltmeter on your handlebars so you can see what's happening while riding.

As a first step toward trouble-shooting your charging system I suggest you carefully inspect your wiring and grounds and solder all connections and eliminate as many stab-together connections as possible. You very possibly have an intermittent problem caused by a sometimes-bad connection.

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Thanks DogBunny,

All of my charging/pamco wiring is solder/shrink tube connected or factory plugs with grease.

Where would a bad ground have to be to fry it? Coil? Regulator?

I recently saw a solid state (the Advance Auto one) regulator (not a reg/rec combo) that had a loose ground. On a points bike. It fried a battery, the AA regulator and some led lights and the tiny neutral indicator light over a period of about a month until I found it.

The coil doesn't have a ground.

I thought coils were grounded by the clamp to the bike, or am I wrong?

There isn't anything about my dual output coil that can be grounded. The entire body is composite plastic of some sort. I see no way for a coil to be grounded on mine.

Technically the spark plug wires lead to ground, but other than that, look at any of the simplified wiring diagrams and you will see that the coils are un-grounded.

by ground on the coil I was talking about the core and its contact with the frame

I know that a transformer doesn't need the core to be grounded to operate, but thought maybe with these bikes something slipped past me...

Sounds like a voltage spike at 5000 Rpm and above. Your regulator not regulating. If you check voltage at 5000 voltage increases past the pamco fry limits. Are you running a PMA ?

scabber said:

Sounds like a voltage spike at 5000 Rpm and above. Your regulator not regulating. If you check voltage at 5000 voltage increases past the pamco fry limits. Are you running a PMA ?

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That's the only thing that would make any sense... No to the PMA, stock alternator.

Is that at all common that the regulator only breaks down at higher RPM?


So today I was able to hook up everything and give points a try while I wait to hear from Pete. I have the two points wired together and connected to a condenser on one side of the coil. The other side of the coil has power but through the 2ohm ballast resistor(so about 4.3ohm total with coil). Everything seems to be checking out but I am only getting an intermittent spark...not enough to actually fire the motor. Every once in a while I can see the timing light flashing, but it is on and off again...but mostly off.

I don't know what the condition of these points is but I set the gaps to .016" and played with the timing by eye at least to see if the points begin to open somewhere near TDC. I used some 600grit between the contacts to clean those a bit but they actually look pretty good.

Is there anything I'm missing here? I've been checking my connections and rechecking them. I can't figure out what's going on.

Slightly frustrating considering I hadn't had any issues with this bike until about 150 miles after assembly...

FWIW, I had burned up 3 charging rotor's before I found that the engine and frame of the bike wasn't making a good conection. I would get perfect reading's up to 3000 rpm, so I thought all was good. Then, out of shear luck I stumbled across the ground problem. Had jumper cables on, and checking the reading's above 4000 rpm, all good until I took off the jumper cable's, then I would get spikey voltage reading's. Made a cable out of 6 ga. wire from the cam adjuster to where the ground cable from the battery mount's on the frame. Problem solved. I mention because who would even think that the frame and engine would not make a good connection?

Gordon said:

FWIW, I had burned up 3 charging rotor's before I found that the engine and frame of the bike wasn't making a good conection. I would get perfect reading's up to 3000 rpm, so I thought all was good. Then, out of shear luck I stumbled across the ground problem. Had jumper cables on, and checking the reading's above 4000 rpm, all good until I took off the jumper cable's, then I would get spikey voltage reading's. Made a cable out of 6 ga. wire from the cam adjuster to where the ground cable from the battery mount's on the frame. Problem solved. I mention because who would even think that the frame and engine would not make a good connection?

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Thanks for the heads up Gordon. I plan on doing some testing at higher rpm once I get it running on points. Are you saying that you were checking the regulator at 3000 rpm? What were you actually checking that exposed the bad ground?

I really would like to find the issue without frying another PAMCO in the process.

Speaking of getting it going on points. I finally got it running. It took over 35 min to get the two timing marks of the separate points to line up and get them at the right time. They aren't perfect but they're pretty darn close. The advance wasn't working right at first but it finally started coming in as things warmed up. It was a little late to get it out and take it for a spin so I'll have to check it tomorrow. Now I can at least check some other things with it running again and see if I can't get to the bottom of this.

I was checking the voltage reading's at the higher rpm's looking for some oddities. I had the jumper's on to be sure that the battery wasn't getting overloaded. Had steady reading's with the jumper's on, but as soon as I removed them I got very high and spikey voltage reading's. Changed out the regulator, and still high voltage but a little steadier reading's. Reattached the negative cable and it all straightened out. So, I just clamped the cable to the engine then to the battery negative without the spare battery connected, and the raeding's were now perfect all the way up to 5000 rpm. Noisy and was chasing the bike around at 5000, but it confirmed the bad ground. Did the same test after I installed the cable from the engine to the battery neg. mount on the frame. Problem solved, and my bike does have the TCI ignition. That was about 5-6 years ago now. Running pretty good, and no more issue's with the charing system at all.
BTW, I had previosly done all the electrical connection's, cleaned, soldered, and dielecrtic grease on all. So when the frame wasn't making a sufficient ground, I was totally set back in disbelief! But it does make some sense, as the frame is iron and the engine is aluminium. The 2 different metal's just by them selves will cause corrosion with just a little moisture. So, after I did my 10,000 mile rebuild( just a check on the upper end and replacement of the cam chain guide)cleaned all the place's where the bolt's connect the engine to the frame, and greased them, I still put on the extra gound cable. The 2 ground's in the harness on the top end are, in my opinion, too small, only 16 ga. wire. You also have a ground cable near where the starter cable is, but all I know is that since I did the mod I haven't had any more charging problem's.

Gordon said:

I was checking the voltage reading's at the higher rpm's looking for some oddities. I had the jumper's on to be sure that the battery wasn't getting overloaded. Had steady reading's with the jumper's on, but as soon as I removed them I got very high and spikey voltage reading's. Changed out the regulator, and still high voltage but a little steadier reading's. Reattached the negative cable and it all straightened out. So, I just clamped the cable to the engine then to the battery negative without the spare battery connected, and the raeding's were now perfect all the way up to 5000 rpm. Noisy and was chasing the bike around at 5000, but it confirmed the bad ground. Did the same test after I installed the cable from the engine to the battery neg. mount on the frame. Problem solved, and my bike does have the TCI ignition. That was about 5-6 years ago now. Running pretty good, and no more issue's with the charing system at all.
BTW, I had previosly done all the electrical connection's, cleaned, soldered, and dielecrtic grease on all. So when the frame wasn't making a sufficient ground, I was totally set back in disbelief! But it does make some sense, as the frame is iron and the engine is aluminium. The 2 different metal's just by them selves will cause corrosion with just a little moisture. So, after I did my 10,000 mile rebuild( just a check on the upper end and replacement of the cam chain guide)cleaned all the place's where the bolt's connect the engine to the frame, and greased them, I still put on the extra gound cable. The 2 ground's in the harness on the top end are, in my opinion, too small, only 16 ga. wire. You also have a ground cable near where the starter cable is, but all I know is that since I did the mod I haven't had any more charging problem's.

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Thanks Gordon for the thorough explanation of your experience. I'm going to be doing some testing soon.

I was able to get out on it tonight and get around the country block a couple times. The advance is definitely sticking some. At first it was sticking badly, as it warmed up it got a bit better since everything is freshly greased I figure this is somewhat normal...but it still is a bit on the sticky side. I may end up clipping one coil off a spring and see if that doesn't help.

I'm not sure how much of what I was feeling was advance that was inconsistent or just running rougher with points than with the PAMCO. Hopefully in the next few days I can get it out and put it through the paces. I still need to hook up the voltmeter and see what the regulator is putting out at over 5,000rpm...hopefully it's just a simple ground issue.

would there be any benefit to a fused voltage clamping circuit? Is it not better to blow a fuse than a Pamco?

queenslegs said:

would there be any benefit to a fused voltage clamping circuit? Is it not better to blow a fuse than a Pamco?View attachment 47373

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I suppose that would be "better" but wouldn't you rather have something that just kept running?

queenslegs said:

would there be any benefit to a fused voltage clamping circuit? Is it not better to blow a fuse than a Pamco?View attachment 47373

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Interesting indeed...I would say yes...

mrriggs said:

I suppose that would be "better" but wouldn't you rather have something that just kept running?

Click to expand...

you're absolutely right...having a fuse protected circuit isn't a fix. However, I also think having a protective circuit in place that could keep from frying a $200 system would be worth having in the event of some strange intermittent problem like I'm having right now. It might also save Pete some time, aggravation, and I can only assume...money.

Meanwhile, instead of just replacing a fuse and trying the next set of tests I have to wait for another PAMCO and hope I figure it out before I burn up yet another one...or in my case, gut the old wiring, install and set up points/auto advance, spend waaaaaay too much time trying to get bike to run properly, continue testing to see what may have caused the PAMCO problem, eventually hopefully figure it out, reinstall another new PAMCO and hope it never happens again...

so IMO absolutely yes...I'd pay to have a way to better protect with a fuse without hesitation

So yesterday I had it up at 5000+rpm with the voltmeter on and it read as high as 14.77v. That still seems reasonable to me.

I still need to check and make sure I have good contact between the frame and motor at high rpm, that's the only other thing I can think could cause a problem.

Any other ideas for PAMCO frying?


On another note. I had no popping in my exhaust on decel with the PAMCO, the carbs seemed to be tuned perfectly. No dead spots, no stumbles, solid performance in all throttle positions. Now with points and auto advance I have popping in the exhaust on decel. The only change at all was changing to points...no carb or exhaust changes from what was working well with the pamco.

Any ideas here?

Weak spark?
I'm still using the 5k ohm resistor caps I had on before, could they be causing an issue?
Could spring advance retarding too quickly as I decel at higher rpm cause it?

I think you are correct thinking that the advance is retarding quickly causing the popping. How old is the advance unit and how tight are the weight's and spring's? As far as the frame mount's go, I just suggested that could be a problem area, and could very well be your source of trouble. A simple ground strap worked for me.
How old are the spark plug caps? If they are real old (original?), they could be shot, putting more load on the coil's.Now you didn'tention which Pamco you have. Is it the one that uses the advance unit or the one with the advance curve built into it. I, personnally, have not used one, but I have read here that they are pretty good, and Pete does stand behind them. That doesn't do any good if you get stuck on the road. Your reading's at the high RPM are good as long as they are not spiking or jumping around. A steady 14.7 is a good reading.