Sorry in advance for this long rant.
First off... 79 points bike, stock original reg / rec / alternator with simplified TCbros wiring harness.
I've been putting in a lot of time with this bike lately and I'm just baffled as to what happening today on a shake down. I just installed new points, condensers, coils and alternator brushes. The bike fired first kick, idled, revved and sounded great. Choked up nice, settled down to a nice even idle after warming up a bit. I hooked up the meter to the battery and gave it a little rev and saw the voltage steadily climbing to around 13.8v. I decided to take it for a little test spin.
The test spin was going well, REALLY well in fact. The bike was revving out nice, accepting throttle beautifully, shifting nice. Not stalling when coming to a stop.... just really running how I hoped it would after the new parts. I decided to stop by a friends house, He was outside and I rolled up to his driveway. Came to a stop and the bike stalled, oh well I'm thinking, it's probably fully warmed up now and maybe i need to bump the idle a bit so I think nothing of it.
Fast forward to me getting ready to leave, I turn the key on and no lights, hmmm... fuse blew maybe?? Nope... checked all fuses are they were good. Grab the multimeter and I have no power to the ignition when I turn the key on. Bad ignition switch maybe? Nope... ran direct power to ignition wire and still nothing (not even a voltage reading) run direct power to lights, nothing. All bulbs appear to be blown. Needless to say we loaded it up and brought it back to my house.
I have now completely disassembled my wiring harness and still can't figure out what the hell happened. When I plug everything in and test for voltage at the ignition it reads NONE, UNLESS I unplug the regulator. (I hope that clicks for one of you experts).... Also when I do have power to the ignition and I test the hot wire running to the coils (at the coil) it has voltage sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, as I turn it over the voltage comes and goes as the points open and close. (I hope that's also a clue for you experts). One thing I no is that I no longer have ANY spark even hooking directly to battery. Battery reads 12.6v. Points gap .12.
The only thing "new" today were the alternator brushes, prior to today they were not hooked up. The bike still ran ok just obviously not charging the battery. Rotor measures 5 ohms.
My theory.... crap original regulator wasn't doing it's job and I had extremely high voltage running through the system. This was not evident prior since the alternator wasn't giving it anything to do and during my pre-test I just didn't rev it high enough to reveal the issue. I can deal with that, what I don't understand is why I can't get it to fire after unhooking the regulator and running the ignition straight to battery. What damage could high voltage do to everything??? NOTHING seems like it got hot, no wires burnt, no connectors burnt, no weird smells, nothing. And it's so bizarre how it was running so good just before this.
I even swapped my original coil back in thinking I fried the new ones, but I had the same results.
Again I'm sorry for the long post.... I just drove myself insane tonight trying to diagnose. If anyone wants to chime in I'm all ears.
First off... 79 points bike, stock original reg / rec / alternator with simplified TCbros wiring harness.
I've been putting in a lot of time with this bike lately and I'm just baffled as to what happening today on a shake down. I just installed new points, condensers, coils and alternator brushes. The bike fired first kick, idled, revved and sounded great. Choked up nice, settled down to a nice even idle after warming up a bit. I hooked up the meter to the battery and gave it a little rev and saw the voltage steadily climbing to around 13.8v. I decided to take it for a little test spin.
The test spin was going well, REALLY well in fact. The bike was revving out nice, accepting throttle beautifully, shifting nice. Not stalling when coming to a stop.... just really running how I hoped it would after the new parts. I decided to stop by a friends house, He was outside and I rolled up to his driveway. Came to a stop and the bike stalled, oh well I'm thinking, it's probably fully warmed up now and maybe i need to bump the idle a bit so I think nothing of it.
Fast forward to me getting ready to leave, I turn the key on and no lights, hmmm... fuse blew maybe?? Nope... checked all fuses are they were good. Grab the multimeter and I have no power to the ignition when I turn the key on. Bad ignition switch maybe? Nope... ran direct power to ignition wire and still nothing (not even a voltage reading) run direct power to lights, nothing. All bulbs appear to be blown. Needless to say we loaded it up and brought it back to my house.
I have now completely disassembled my wiring harness and still can't figure out what the hell happened. When I plug everything in and test for voltage at the ignition it reads NONE, UNLESS I unplug the regulator. (I hope that clicks for one of you experts).... Also when I do have power to the ignition and I test the hot wire running to the coils (at the coil) it has voltage sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, as I turn it over the voltage comes and goes as the points open and close. (I hope that's also a clue for you experts). One thing I no is that I no longer have ANY spark even hooking directly to battery. Battery reads 12.6v. Points gap .12.
The only thing "new" today were the alternator brushes, prior to today they were not hooked up. The bike still ran ok just obviously not charging the battery. Rotor measures 5 ohms.
My theory.... crap original regulator wasn't doing it's job and I had extremely high voltage running through the system. This was not evident prior since the alternator wasn't giving it anything to do and during my pre-test I just didn't rev it high enough to reveal the issue. I can deal with that, what I don't understand is why I can't get it to fire after unhooking the regulator and running the ignition straight to battery. What damage could high voltage do to everything??? NOTHING seems like it got hot, no wires burnt, no connectors burnt, no weird smells, nothing. And it's so bizarre how it was running so good just before this.
I even swapped my original coil back in thinking I fried the new ones, but I had the same results.
Again I'm sorry for the long post.... I just drove myself insane tonight trying to diagnose. If anyone wants to chime in I'm all ears.