More Charging Issues

[sivarTi]

I'm so close to riding I can taste it.

1980 XS650SG, stock ignition etc.

I started here.
http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10561&highlight=charging+test

I passed the slap test and moved on down the line. I started the bike and grounded the green wire off the regulator and at idle my voltage started climbing. But I get lost after that test. Is my regulator shot, can I fix it or does it need some sort of ground that I'm missing after taking the bike apart?

I guess what's next after I get this far. Any help would be great, I got her licensed and all my Mikes parts get here tomorrow.

 

[Travis]

What problem are you having with your charging system. To high voltage or not enough?

I am not a charging system expert at all, but further down in that thread it says for the slap test "IF the wrench moves your regulator brushes and rotor all work!"

 

[Travis]

Nevermind.. Looks like you already figured out your problem in the 'Expanded charging system guide' thread. So what did the problem end up being? A bad regulator?

 

[sivarTi]

Nevermind.. Looks like you already figured out your problem in the 'Expanded charging system guide' thread. So what did the problem end up being? A bad regulator?

Yah I found that guide, funny I searched for ever-posted something then of course found the answer but couldn't delete this one once I started it. I never fouind the exact answer I was after but decided to I just had to do it.

Yah it was the regulator, I built the chrysler/RS reg/rect combo yesterday and fired the bike up and it charged. I was very very happy, heavy on the was.

Today I put my new cocktail shakers on and went for a ride. The first half was great, I parked it and watched some football practice then went to go home. I made it about 6 blocks and stopped at the sign then had no power to take off. I figured it out, I lost the right side. No power, pull the plug and no change it's not firing at all so now I'm off to search that. I unscrewed the plug cap and the once what I assume was copper core wire is now a nice shade of green. I cut the wire back a 1/4" and screwed the cap back on but it's still not firing hard. I do have a minor amount of spark but not enough to fire the cyl. In fact I got hit with it and it was nothing more than a low voltage discharge at best.

Any ideas Trav?

 

[sivarTi]

Oh also once it started cutting out I spun around and limped to the parking lot, when I got there my "idle" jumped to like 3K rpm's and wouldn't fall for quite a while. I think the dropped cyl collected some gas and once that side fired it boosted the r's up a bit. I'm talking right out of my ass here to be honest.

Too late now but tomorrow I'm going to swap the leads and see if I drop out the left side. I guess that will eliminate gas vs elect problems.

 

[Travis]

Hmm.. bad coil? bad plug? Try swapping the wires around like you said and see if the problem moves to the other side.. Then put in new plugs since they're cheap (or swap plugs if you don't have extras on hand) and you'll narrow down your problem to the coil and wires or a bad plug. I'm assuming the left side is firing fine meaning you have a good battery and 12v is reaching the coil. I don't know a lot about how coils work (specifically, if you can have a single coil with one bad side) so maybe someone else will step in with that. ... I guess if not then it means its the wire and plug cap.

 

[sivarTi]

I always hate when I search and find someone with the same issue I have then they get a ton of advice and never follow up with an answer. I figured I'd post up what I found. After extensive research and double checking all the results I've come to the conclusion that I'm a dumb shit. Pure and simple.

My fuel line was kinked between the butterfly bracket on the carbs. So off I went to the local shop to ask for a 90 degree filter to which they reply "we've never seen one of those but here's our bin of filters, good luck". First filter I pulled out, boom there it was the 90* filter I was after. I was happy, they were happy and we all hugged.

So far so good......kinda.

I took my fine running machine out for a spin to football practice and as I was leaving I broke my clutch cable so I was left with 2 options. Downshift and time the light or take off onto the highway and find a place to turn around. Option 1 didn't work so off I went, long story short I ran out of gas on the way home. Anyone see a theme?

Brought the bike home, decided that the reducing bushings that Mikes XS send with their cocktail shakers suck and I didn't like how far the mufflers sat back either. I took the headers off, cut 2" off and slipped a piece of 1 3/4" .120 wall DOM tube 2" long over the end and welded it on at the tip. Ground it out and filed the inside, now the mufflers fit way better and the factory muffler brackets can now be used and mounted to the passenger foot peg brackets and no leaks. I also put in the new sump filter, gasket, copper drain washers and main filter as well as some Shell Rotella T 15/40.

Now for a new issue at least I think it's new. I think I have a little valve noise now I didn't hear before, maybe do to having my mufflers not only on but not leaking now I can just hear it? Also my clutch is slipping, I had a spare cable so I put it on while doing all this, it may have been slipping before but I've started opening up the bike more and I know it's not working right. It's slipping bad enough that the bike died (idle set too low) so I popped the clutch to start the bike and the drag just slowed me down without turning the engine over. Off to read more.

 

[Travis]

Wow one problem after another for you! At least you're working through them!

 

[Ksboy19]

Im having a similar problem, Im using tcbros 80-89 wiring harness, and my problem is that im not getting any power out of my regulator. I traced it to the reg/rec, so im getting power into it just no hot wires coming out of it, so im not getting any power to my stater and so forth. Is my reg/rec bad? Any ideas?

 

[sivarTi]

I put 60 miles on over the last 2 days and it's been a ton of fun. I picked up some NGK BP7ES plugs today that I'll throw in tomorrow. Picked up a new skid lid today as well, my 460.00 bike is starting to add up but now that I'm riding daily it's all worth it.

KsBoy, read in the tech area and get a good ohm meter. I'm lucky enough to have a Fluke 87, my other tester only can read up to 200 ohms which isn't near enough for these machines.

With that said I took a reading across my plug wires with the caps on and got a reading of 42.1K! I'll read my plug caps tomorrow alone and I honestly hope they read somewhere around 10-15k each lol. I somehow doubt it but it would be a cheap and easy fix to get the down to the 23K it sounds like it should be.

 

[sivarTi]

A new set of NGK plug caps I my ohm reading dropped from 42.1K to 23.99k! I was amazed to say the least. Another lesson learned, another lesson passed on I guess.