Wharfcreek
Near 50 Yrs of Experience
So I got pretty frustrated today trying to get this '82 to fire. This is a 'project' bike, salvaged from the proverbial 'barn', and in fair overall condition at best. The good news was that the engine wasn't locked up, unlike the othre 'salvage' bike I have in my driveway. So, long story short, I pulled the carbs and did a cleanup and bench adjust on both of them last evening. But, before reinstalling them I wanted to at least make sure the engine fired. So, hooked up a battery, turned on the key, and with the neutral light showing green, I sprayed some starting ether in the ports and kicked it over. Nuthin!
LIke I said: Long story short.....so, to keep it simple, I did a bunch of continuity tests and confirmed good grounds throughout, and a healthy 12V at the coil and at the connector on the Igniter box side. I cleaned up contacts on the pickup, the block connector to the igniter, and up at the coil. I also confirmed good ground contact between the coil and frame. With no spark present, I got frustrated and ended up pulling most of the harness off the back half of the bike, pulled the battery box and removed the igniter box. So, that box is now in the house with me.
To the best of my knowledge there's no good way to 'bench test' the igniter box. But, I think one can pop the top cover and do a visual inspection and see if the box shows any obvious signs of failure.....like burned up parts on the board, cracks in the circuit traces.....broken components, etc. My unit is a '7-wire' type, and I've got 2 other units here that are 6 wire types. I believe the 7th wire in mine goes to some kind of relay that can otherwise be bypassed?
What I'd like to do is to come up with a known good coil, and possibly come up with some kind of way to simulate a running condition on the shop bench. If anyone has any experience with doing something like this, I'd love to know about it? What did you do for a 'trigger' mechanism (a substitute for the pickup pulse)? If I'm not mistaken, one can simplify the entire system by simply running a new 'positive' wire to the ignitor unit and coil, and then just make sure the 3 pickup wires are properly connected, and that the orange wire between the igniter box and coil has good continuity. Finally, a good 'negative' connection to the black wire on the igniter box. So, a 'known good coil' is necessary to run a simulation...... OR, I think a LED can be used here to at least see if signal exists. But, an alternative trigger would great too. Then the whole system could be tested OFF the bike!!
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know. And if anyone has a known good coil, that would be helpful to. My coil is off the other parts bike, and it's condition is really unknown. It could be my problem, or the pickup, or igniter box, and any combination of the 3. In fact, the only thing I know it is not, is the loss of 12 volts within the system. As that is confirmed, it's got to be coil, pickup, or black box.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks!! Tom D.
LIke I said: Long story short.....so, to keep it simple, I did a bunch of continuity tests and confirmed good grounds throughout, and a healthy 12V at the coil and at the connector on the Igniter box side. I cleaned up contacts on the pickup, the block connector to the igniter, and up at the coil. I also confirmed good ground contact between the coil and frame. With no spark present, I got frustrated and ended up pulling most of the harness off the back half of the bike, pulled the battery box and removed the igniter box. So, that box is now in the house with me.
To the best of my knowledge there's no good way to 'bench test' the igniter box. But, I think one can pop the top cover and do a visual inspection and see if the box shows any obvious signs of failure.....like burned up parts on the board, cracks in the circuit traces.....broken components, etc. My unit is a '7-wire' type, and I've got 2 other units here that are 6 wire types. I believe the 7th wire in mine goes to some kind of relay that can otherwise be bypassed?
What I'd like to do is to come up with a known good coil, and possibly come up with some kind of way to simulate a running condition on the shop bench. If anyone has any experience with doing something like this, I'd love to know about it? What did you do for a 'trigger' mechanism (a substitute for the pickup pulse)? If I'm not mistaken, one can simplify the entire system by simply running a new 'positive' wire to the ignitor unit and coil, and then just make sure the 3 pickup wires are properly connected, and that the orange wire between the igniter box and coil has good continuity. Finally, a good 'negative' connection to the black wire on the igniter box. So, a 'known good coil' is necessary to run a simulation...... OR, I think a LED can be used here to at least see if signal exists. But, an alternative trigger would great too. Then the whole system could be tested OFF the bike!!
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know. And if anyone has a known good coil, that would be helpful to. My coil is off the other parts bike, and it's condition is really unknown. It could be my problem, or the pickup, or igniter box, and any combination of the 3. In fact, the only thing I know it is not, is the loss of 12 volts within the system. As that is confirmed, it's got to be coil, pickup, or black box.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks!! Tom D.
