Shakedown-Breakdown

Well, not exactly. When I came in last run, I stalled it by the garage and then forgot to turn off the ignition. Ran the battery down to about 4V, but that came back, solid 12.8V after overnight charging and holding today. Trouble is now no start. Total stock setup. I did a new static timing on it in case one of the points was messed up from the current, but they looked good. Been static timing it one way to Sunday today, seems to be good, and got a tiny poot out of it this morning, but nothing since. Spark is there, but looks weak. I guess tomorrow I'll be taking the coils off to see if I can find anything there, and check the condensers. Everything else looks good. I did check the coil primary ohms and they seem good. Don't know what it could be besides the coils. It may be time for new coils and EI sooner than I wanted. I notice it's hard to gauge the points because the center shaft is loose on the cam and it makes the points wander around, even when the cam is in in the same place. It was running fine the other day, turning into a 1 kick starter. Something changed.

I think it's going to be feed the dogs early followed by early Margaretta.

Dave
69S

DogT said:

forgot to turn off the ignition.

Spark is there, but looks weak.

Click to expand...

Leaving the ignition switched on for a long period can overheat a coil-if the points are closed.

One was closed, I checked it before I disturbed it. Drive side. I'm going to pull the coils and see if I can make any sense of ohmmeter readings on the secondary. In the past it would start on one cylinder, but it was tough, not one kick for sure, but at least I got poots out of it. Now nearly nothing.

Dave
69S

Pulled the tank to measure coils. + to - right side 3.72Ω, left side 3.91Ω, seems they were closer before, but don't have anything written down. + to out both sides 5.4KΩ, doesn't look too far off. At least nothing is total failure yet. I guess I should check the point resistance and maybe include the harness with it. Wish I could measure spark voltage, I wonder if my old Tektronix 545A O-scope would, if it still works?

Dave
69S

Did you also check from the terminals to the coil casing? You could also try isolating the coils from their brackets and check if that improves the sparks which would sugggest one or both coils could be shorting to ground through its casing?

Yes, checked the resistance from coil + and - and HV to ground with the Fluke 189. Nothing, this meter will read resistance between my hands. I don't have a megger though. Not to say one of them isn't breaking down. Checked points resistance, around .27Ω less leads of .15Ω sounds good to me, both pretty much the same, put a points file on them, no change. Measured resistance from points (holding points open) to the coil and condenser leads, about .35Ω, a bit more to the condenser. All seems kopesetik. I'll have to sleep on this one. I can't believe the carbs would go sour from one day to the next, but stranger things have happened. I'm so dissapointed, it was starting so good. I kind of wonder if I just hadn't hit the sweet spot on the timing and now I've got it off, but I use the same method.

Dave
69S

Well, it might be a completely unrelated fault somewhere? Maybe the ignition or kill switch, or a wiring/ground fault-just keep checking.

I'm remembering something like 2.7 ohms for 6V coils. When I checked mine (without disconnecting them) I got 3.1 ohms. The .35 ohm from through the points to the coil seems kind of high to me. ( How are you inserting the ohms symbol ?) The problem was a dead battery, it is hard to imagine that there is an unrelated problem that popped up over night. Have you tried hot wiring the bike ? I see you filed the points but how about cleaning them ? It works with my tractor...

Greg

I've got 12V coils, no ballast. I ohmed everything disconnected. Well that .37Ω includes the .15Ω of the leads. Doesn't sound out of range to me. It really wasn't a dead battery, I left the ignition on and it drained through one of the points through the coil for maybe 4 hours. Yeah, that was my next thing was to just run wires from the bat to the ignition system, maybe I have some high resistance in the ignition switch now, I haven't checked that. I cleaned the points with carb cleaner after I filed them.

I have a list of Alt-x things in a Word document that I go to when I want to use them, copy and paste. Some you can do with the Alt key, like Alt-0176 gives you the degree sign. ° I haven't figured the Greek omega sign, it's listed but doesn't work so I copy and paste. £ is Alt-156. ¢ is Alt-0162.

Dave
69S

http://www.timeatlas.com/5_minute_tips/ ... characters

Of course it's different on a Mac. For example º is Option + Zero.

I don't have Option. I guess it's a Mac thing. My wife has the Mac thing and I am always trying to figure out what she wants, and then she can't remember and I have to relearn everything, just like everything, I forget.

Dave
Goodnight.

DogT said:

I don't have Option. I guess it's a Mac thing. My wife has the Mac thing and I am always trying to figure out what she wants, and then she can't remember and I have to relearn everything, just like everything, I forget.

Dave
Goodnight.

Click to expand...

Check out the link I gave you. Tells the Windows folks how to do the fancy stuff.

gjr said:

I'm remembering something like 2.7 ohms for 6V coils. When I checked mine (without disconnecting them) I got 3.1 ohms.

Click to expand...

A Lucas 6V 17M6 coil should have a primary resistance of 1.7-1.9 ohms, and a 12V 17M12 is 3.3-3.8 ohms according to Lucas test data.

On the road again. It was the ignition switch. Took it apart, cleaned, lubed, de-ox, hardly any resistance now. Started 2nd kick. I cleaned all the spade lugs in the ignition circuit while I was at it.

Dave
69S

All of these long term projects hitting road is inspiring.
DogT, I'm 57 but I think you got me by a decade or so. I know how young and alive i feel when riding mine and can really imagine the glee you must be feeling. i am sure everyone here can attest.

Can't stop now, I'm movin' too fast. Yeah, I got you by 10.

Dave
69S