July 6 updated:
Took Yagi on a 30 mile ride and no issues with the ignition seen! I discovered a drained battery though when I returned home, apparently the stator isn't charging the battery while riding. Some more twisting of wires, two of them, and apparently one was the one responsible for charging the battery as I now can see a charge going to it when I rev the engine.
Going to set Yagi aside for now, waiting on new gasket for the stator cover and a replacement stator assembly with pristine wiring to replace my cobbled together mess of wire repair. This will hopefully lead to once again reliable performance by Yagi. I should be replacing things next Sunday.
In the meantime, time to go camping for a few days. Stay tuned.
Previously:
July 5 update.
Yagi quit on me twice today during a test ride, once I got her home after wiggling the wires I checked the wiring again and found issues.
Looks like the connectors I used I did not install correctly apparently and so I have just twisted the wires together and used heat shrink tubing for now on the affected wires.
More test rides to follow.
Previously:
My thanks to gurus such as RichardM, Brad L. and Chris Z. who over the last few days, have given of their time to help me to troubleshoot and learn about the issue regarding "no spark" on my TW200, Yagi.
It turned out to be neither the Ignition Coil or the CDI Module as I previously thought. So I won't have to shell out near $200 for a replacement CDI. I did replace the coil (needlessly it turned out) but the cost was less than $10.
There was also research done online at the tw200forum.com website. Much reading resulted in a post that mentioned checking the wires going from the CDI to the Generator/Stator assembly behind the left side engine cover. Apparently, it's really easy to "pinch" said wires, causing "no spark" issues.
Note to self: Always lean the motorcycle to the right, supported by a jack stand, before removing the left side engine cover. Otherwise, you'll lose a bunch of oil!
I got the cover off and saw that the wire bundle had indeed been pinched! Probably happened when I last had the cover off when I was in the process of replacing the front drive sprocket. That turned out to be a non-issue, instead the chain being too loose.
I found three damaged wires, here's the one that I started working to splice together again:
The white wire is the one I found parted in two where it had been pinched by the side cover. The thicker white wire was my initial attempt to restore the connection. Note the damage to the red wire as well. The brown wire in the other bundle would turn out broken as well.
Once I spliced the white wire above, I put the side cover on loosely and lo and behold, I had SPARK! The crowd went wild and there was much rejoicing!
There would be several cover install/removals over the next day or so as I figured out what was damaged, got the right connectors to fix them and learned the hard way how to properly route wires out of the side cover! Truly I should not be allowed near tools sometimes.
If you can see wiring in the cavity where the front sprocket/chain is located, you have misrouted and pinched the wires!
It was the inability on my part to properly route wires out of the side cover which led to several cover removals and installs, sporadic lack of spark (as I pinched wires) and overall frustration. It would take this youtube video to "show me the way":
My thanks to RichardM for recommending these connectors which have solder that melts when heated to ensure a robust connection for two wires.
I really suck at soldering wires so the above should prove to be a good thing in my efforts to keep stuff running.
I'll be removing the cover one more time I think, perhaps more, to replace the now quite ratty gasket for the side cover. Yamabond Sealant to the rescue for now.
I've also ordered replacement stator/pulser assemblies from Amazon. It is my hope my current wiring repairs hold up in the long run, if not, I'll use the new assemblies to replace the wires involved. ($76).
More to follow as I do some more test riding of Yagi to see if my wiring repairs hold up to regular usage. Keep your fingers crossed!
Some notes:
Testing of the CDI Module. Procedure shown in video found by Chris Z. In my case, I put the negative probe of a multimeter in Ohm mode on one terminal, and used the positive probe to touch each remaining pin. I would get around 1.7 ohm reading on each except for two. Of these two, one isn't hooked up with wire and the other (green/white) leads to the stator. It was also the no ohm reading on the green/white wire which led me to think about possible pinching of wires.
My multimeters proved not sensitive enough to get reliable resistance readings on the ignition coil. The readings I got "seemed" to be within acceptable range but it was not certain to me. I now have the original coil as a hot spare.
You have to pay attention when removing the screws holding the side cover in place. Two are longer than the others and only go into certain spots.
If you pinch/damage the wires coming out of the stator, you will get "no spark".
Tonight's sunset with Yagi once again operational.
