Boyer Kickback

Thanks again to all of you who gave advise as to why my buddies 850 kicked the crap out of me last week when I tried to start it. I had cleaned the wires going directly to the boyer unit and it's ground when I did the top end so I did not suspect a problem there. I just got the tank pulled last night and did a voltage check to the Boyer and to my suprise it was all over the place??? 12.5, 3.2, 6.8 etc. etc. but never consistently 12 volts?? I moved the wires around under the tank with the VOM attached to the Boyer and it changed radically. I found that the main junction harness connetor had failed drastically. The bullett connectors that plugged in to the main rubber boot were faulty. The metal sleeves they slip into inside the boot had broken and wires were rattling around in there like pebbles in a maracca!!!!! I am surprised anything electrical worked at all. Thanks a lot LUCAS ELECT for such great reliable harnesses. The voltage became reliably steady at 12.58 volts after I soldered and heat shrinked all the connections. What a damn mess!!! I have not tried to start it yet as I will take your other advise and use a degree wheel I downloaded to make sure the timing marks are correct. I also removed the brake lever and jumped the cheeeesy kill swith button so there will be no proplems with that piece of junk. I had already installed a new ignition switch the week before. What is the proper degree timing I should use when strobing to time it once I am sure the marks are correct--28 or 32 degrees and should this be done at 5000RPM??? or does another amount of advance work better when using a Boyer???? The bike is a weekend rider and not a hot rod. We are both 52 years old and just want to reliably cruise around on weekends. I can't thank you enough for all the help. Mark C.

Mark Cigainero said:

Thanks a lot LUCAS ELECT for such great reliable harnesses.

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Well, these things are likely to be over thirty years old!! so I guess they haven't done too badly? (I know that we all expect electrical components especially wiring harnesses to last for ever -unlike the mechanical parts!).

Mark Cigainero said:

What is the proper degree timing I should use when strobing to time it once I am sure the marks are correct--28 or 32 degrees and should this be done at 5000RPM??? or does another amount of advance work better when using a Boyer????

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Any Commando *Boyer* unit should initially be set to 31 degrees @5000 RPM.
http://www.boyerbransden.com/html/data_sheets.html

You can strobe time to both drive side and timing side dials if your pointer is strong an doesn't vibrate at 5000 RPM. The safer bet is to use the wheel to place the crank just so and than read the number off the scale in the primary cover. Than scribe the corrected # inside your access door.