New owner 82 xs650 heritage special.

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82xs650

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Hi, I just picked up an 82 xs650 heritage special a couple of days ago for 250 bucks. It is beat to hell and needs a ton of work. I made sure to try the kick starter for compression before I took it home and it has compression. I tested it at home with a new battery in and I have 145 on the right cylinder and a little bit over 150 on the left cylinder. So that is promising. I am kind of shocked seeing how the last time this thing was plated was in 96'. So, I already tore apart the carbs and cleaned the hell out of everything on the inside and replaced all o-rings, made sure float needles were sealing and they are. Set float levels. Heres my issue, the headlight does not work, push button start does not work, starter makes some pretty terrible noises. (I jumped the solenoid with a screwdriver to see if it would start). I have no spark. Horn doesn't work. I tested the headlight on my car battery and it works on both high beam and lo beam so this is definitely an electrical issue on the bike. It has an aftermarket accel coil on there which I presume to be good but it is old as well. I got new plugs and wires, and oil change. Oil was clean with no metal flakes or chips of any sort. From what I could see through the spark plug hole, the cylinders looked very smooth with no scoring. So, I have noticed a lot of people speaking about replacing ignition systems on these bikes. Is that only for the older ones? And does anybody have any tips on where to start that may shorten my guess work. I plan on studying the colored wiring diagram that I found on here before I jump into anything. Well, after stalking around this forum for the last week, just wanted to say hi and ask my first questions. Will be many more im sure.

Thanks,
Nick
 
The 82 will not start if the side stand is down the head light will come on once the bike is running transmission in neutral kill switch on try that. Welcome
 
In your repair manual there is an ignition trouble shooting guide for the TCI, thats Transister Controled Ignition. Is is a chart with thing to test and And the order things get checked. The chart is on page 182 of the Clymer book.
On your bike there is a four fuse fuse block under the seat. When new they were ok, After 30+ years they are crap.
The fuses are one 20 amp main fuse. one 10 amp ignition fuse, a 10 amp signal fuse, a 10 amp headlight fuse.
Do you get battery voltage at both ends of all the fuses?
Probably not. Replace the block with four individual inline blade type fuse holders. The round glass fuses are crap, use the blade fuses like most cars use.
Also up at the top of the page is the TECH section. You might want to browse there and read the threads in the Maintaince and General trouble shooting area. The thread Buying Guide, Getting to Know Your Bike
Lots of good info on what to expect.
The whole TECH section is a good read.
Leo
 
Didnt check for voltage, I just checked resistance across the fuses to make sure they were good and they are. The kickstand is not down, I have it on the centerstand. Also, the push button doesnt work, I am going to see what relays this involves and then head on to the harder stuff. I disassembled the starter button and cleaned all the insides out so that might help too. There was all sorts of spider eggs and dirt in there. I am suspecting it is either coil is installed wrong, tci box is bad, or bad relay.
 
My relay was bad when I first got mine, wouldn't crank with the button. Fortunatly I had a parts bike at the time. It's been a while but I believe I chased it down with a probe light.....suffering from a mild case of crs.......
 
My 82 wouldn't run so I got a great deal,
the sidestand relay on was stuck shut, , I opened it up and broke the points loose, and wala spark again.
 
You can disconnect all of these relays. They just cause problems. If you need to be taught how to put a kickstand up, in neutral, ect to start a bike, then you need to get off the bike, lol. I'm surprised they didn't come with a seat switch like some quads did.
The self canceling unit for the turn signals is another throw away.
The headlight won't turn on until current is flowing thru the stator. I think that's how it works. So the bike has to be running.
Make sure you check your kill switch. That will not allow juice to go to the coils.
Your dealing with a 30 yr old wiring harness. My '81 had mud, yes mud, inside the factory sheath and all the little connections were totally corroded.
One little short somewhere can cause all kinds of problems.
 
The ignition switch can be bad too, are you getting a neutral light? The ignition switch is easily bypassed at the connector inside the headlight, take a short chunk of house wire 12 or 14 gauge strip insulation, hammer the wire flat on both ends bend it into a U and insert in the two parallel slots. As suggested after that you just have to follow the voltage, a light bulb tester is actually better than a VOM for this, as a VOM can show voltage but through such a poor connection somewhere that little current can flow. Brightness of the bulb shows if full current is available.

Download the complete Yamaha maintenance manuals here. Manuals
The one titled 650_svc_h.pdf has the TCI troubleshooting how-to.
Good catch on the Heritage special, I saw the CL ad, does it have a title?
 
Those test lights are the best thing ever. They save a ton of time finding power. It's really best to take a day and go over everything. It will save time later and fix any problems now.
 
Resistance will verify continuity but what good is continuity if there is no voltage.
On your bike power runs from battery through the main 20 amp fuse to the key switch. At the key switch power goes out on a blue wire to the tail light and the brown wire to the other three fuses.
On the ignition fuse power flows on the red/white wire to the engine stop switch. From the Engine stop switch on a red/white wire to the ignition coil, sidestand relay and the TCI box, As well as up to the headlight/safety relay on red/white wires. After the headlight/safety relay power flows on a red/white wire to starting circuit cut relay, out on a red/white to the starter relay. On the starter relay power flows out the blue/white wire up to the start button, when you push the stgart button power goes into the handle bars, acroos to the left side control housing where a black wire carries it to the harness ground in the headlight, making the starter spin. That is if the side stand relay and the starting circuit cut relay get the proper signals from the sidestand, neutral light and the clutch.
To bypass the relays you can just remove the sidestand relay. The start cut relay remove and jump from red/white wire to red/white wire.
This will let power flow to the starter relay and the coil/TCI.
Now with the key on, engine stop in run if you jump from the blue/white wire on the start relay, to ground the starter should spin and crank the engine and if you have a plug out of the engine, plugged in the plug wire and the plug held to the engine you should get spark.
If nothing happens then trace the red/white wires from the fuses along toward the coils and such until you find where the voltage stops. Fix the problem then continue untill you get power to the coil, TCI and start relay.
Once you get power to all these places and the voltages are very close to battery voltage, within a few tenths then it should crank on the starter and spark at the plugs.
Once you get there let us know. Or if you run into problems you can't get through then report back.
Leo
 
I did this today on my '82. The side stand relay will let you start the bike, but will kill the power if you put it into first gear. The connector is on the left side, under the side cover. It has a blue/yellow wire and a black wire going into the 2 prong connector. If you unplug the relay it will still cause the bike to stall when a gear is engaged. You can just cut the wires from the connector and twist them together. No more side stand relay.
 
You said the starter made some pretty terrible noises. Don't replace it like I did when I was trying to get my push button start working. I put a different starter in and had the same problem. It turns out it was the spring clip and #4 gear for the starter. Now I have an extra starter, and I got so used to just kick starting the bike, I may never fix the problem.
 
Wow you guys are helpful! I got a lot of stuff to do now! Thanks a lot, I won't have time for a couple days or maybe this weekend but I think I can get some spark goin this weekend. Where is the tci on this bike?
 
Seeing this is a Wisconsin bike that even the PO kinda said was in hopeless shape figure on drilling out the mounting bolts, which won't be easy either. This is the one with ~4000 miles? Be very very careful, a dead TCI due to aggressive removal tactics would be a real setback.
 
You might have to remove all the stuff on the battery box, wiggle the battery box around to get access to the mount bolts.
Just for voltag tests you only need to get to the plug where the TCI plugs into the harness.
Leo
 
Yea I got two manuals, a clymer manual for 70-82 xs650's and I have a "genuine" Yamaha manual. The yamaha manual is about twice as thick as the clymer one and it is for this specific bike. My new bible. Anyway, it shows how to test all of the electrical components so I will just go through one by one and do as it says. And check all the stuff you guys said. Thanks for all the help! My weekend will be busy now. Also, this is the sheet of paper with the part numbers for the accel coils. The one circles is the one that the po bought for the bike. Is that the correct one?
 

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That should be OK. the stock coil should have a primary resistance of 2.5 ohms The Accels spec out at 2.4 to 3.0 ohms but some scuttle butt had a few of the Accels ohming out at 4 ohms and above so it's worth checking it to see if the Accel is in spec.
 

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