Spend the extra time, not the extra money.. TCI troubleshooting

B Burdine97

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I am in the process of tuning my bike for my new pods and aftermarket exhaust. I told the honey Im heading out to the garage to do some work. Turned the fuel on, key switch on, choke on and started kicking. To my surprise, it didnt start! What the hell, I've been starting up the bike quite often in the last couple weeks for tuning and adjusting and have never had a problem with it running. What happend!
Well maybe the battery lost a couple volts.. not the case. Maybe I've got a loose connection somewhere... nope. Well maybe the 35 year old coil finally decided to give up.. not today! Now I'm really scratching my head because like I said earlier I've been starting it up often in the last couple weeks, matter a fact, I started her up 3 days ago, what changed in just 3 days!
Checked resistance of pick up coil, black to orange... 750 ohms, good, black to grey... OL. What the hell! Guess thats the issue, my pick up coil is junk! Most people would stop here and spend the money for a new one. But with my mechanical back ground (heavy equipment tech.) I was not going to junk that damn pick up coil until I could visually see the wires going into it. Stripped back the factory heat shrink, and it gal darn son of a bitch the grey wire was completely severed and the orange one was on its last couple copper wires holding it together!
Bottom line, as many of you know! But not all, spend the extra time to really investigate/verify, before spending the money.. Well maybe thats part of me being a cheap ass, but I saved money and that all i care about.
 

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Good catch. What caused it? Was there a cut in the outer sleeve? Was it where the loom passed through a clamp?
 
The outer sleeve was minorly torn but nothing major. A quick glimpse with the eye it would have passed visual inspection. I believe what cause it was the sharp turn the wires take coming off the final clamp on the stator. I think the clamp dug into the sleeve and wires. Wish I could get a pic! Possibly after work I can.
 
The Factory manual procedure to "test" the TCI is to methodically eliminate every other cause for no spark then replace the TCI to see if that is the problem So you did the right thing. The wires under the LH cover take a beating in a nasty environment, have found more than a few problems with broken wires in there.
 
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