Have a 74 850 that I liberated from a barn in N.Mich. After much rust and grime removel,carbs,coil etc...I thought it should start.after 3 kicks it lite and idled at about 4000 rpm and smoked up the garage proper.as i fiddled with the carbs,new amal primers,igot the idle to 2000rpms and snicked it into first for a quick run around the block.It started on the choke and when I pulled the choke up the rpms would rise,so I used the choke lever to accelerate up through the gears then returned and shut it down.The new throttle and cable were holding the slides up so i put the old throtle back and started over with the carbs.When I tried to stsrt it again I got nothing.I thought my kill switch could be the blame so I made a jumper from the neg to the b/w at the ballest resistor and tried again,still nothing but the ballest resistor was very HOT.I realize the amount of varyables but need some advice to get this bike running.The next step for me is to get a meter to measure voltage and go from there.Any advice welcome.Thanks Pete
Help with ballest resistor problem
- Thread starter buellboy
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- Dec 8, 2011
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Ballast resistors get hot - that is the nature of the beast. They have a fairly low resistance (1.8 to 2 ohms) so a lot of current goes through them. That is the reason why the resistor is mounted on a porcelain housing. I am assuming that your bypass wire connected to the place where the white and blue wire is connected. However, if your white and purple wire was shorted to ground then your ballast resistor would get really, really hot and of course you would not have ignition either. Don't worry about the resistor getting hot, see if you have a spark in your spark plugs first, then go from there.
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- Oct 19, 2005
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Be Very Pensive of Too Hot a Balliast resistor as can actually set the paint on fire if bad internally shorted or porcelain cracked. DAMHIK. Should see 6 v being fed to each contact breaker. Check with key on and watch and smell ballast and order another if gets too hot to touch or smokes towards el flamo.
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