Does this sound like TCI issue?

83 has developed a sporadic issue. Few days ago, went to start, and it simply turned over, no start. Turned key off, pondered a minute, turned key on, and viola, it started, ran fine.

Concerned, I took battery out, cleaned and made sure everything seemed snug and plugged in.

Today, Started and ran fine. I was out and about, running fine, and all the sudden, died, dead, had to coast to side of road. Turned key off, pondered a minute, turned key on, and viola, started right up and ran home.

Bike runs great when running. It sure seems like a lack of spark issue, but a mechanic I am not.

Any suggestions?

Could be TCI. Or it could be the fuse block if is original. The clips on the glass fuses are notorious for breaking with age or losing tension. Or as simple as a wire shaking loose. Wonder if you can see a relationship between bike warming/heating up and the shutdown?

Fuse block seems in tac, perfect condition. I checked that when I had battery out.

You cannot judge the fuse block by appearance. Those clips weaken with age and can have poor connections while looking fine.

Any time I'm working on an older Yamaha with an electrical issue the original fuse box gets replaced before I do anything else. Often that solves the problem.

I definitely agree with MiCarl. Although an original TCI for your model year would have the failure prone diodes in it and those should be replaced BEFORE they do fail, I recently had problems like you report and it was the fusebox. I want to get more specific but I'm not completely sure here. The right side of the HEAD fuse holder was broken but still in the plastic base so it looked good but didn't hold the fuse so well. The part I'm not so sure about: I think part of the computer gets power from that fuse so the starter would run but the console wouldn't have info and it sure wouldn't start, as I recall.

Here's a recent thread I contributed to that shows how easy replacing the fusebox is, Good Luck!

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?105380-Easy-How-to-Fuse-Box

Thanks for the info. I certainly will dig into the fusebox issue better first, replacement seems to be in order, prior to TCI troubleshooting. If it leads me to TCI, I'm sure I'll be back

Thanks for the info. I certainly will dig into the fusebox issue better first, replacement seems to be in order, prior to TCI troubleshooting. If it leads me to TCI, I'm sure I'll be back

If your TCI is original you do still need to replace those diodes before they fail and ruin your TCI.

Here is a thread with most everything you need to know about that, BTW diodes need to be oriented in specific direction.

The band on the diode barrel will be on one side of the connection and this needs to be the same as originals, in case you didn't know.

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?86427-Peek-inside-my-TCI-if-you-will&highlight=diode+replacement

There's lots of photos in the attached thread and even a link to an online source for them.

Thanks for info syscrusher, I will keep this in mind, a winter project. I took for 10 mi. ride again today after cleaning and inspecting Fuseblock. Ran fine. I'm not sure I didn't get some moisture in TCI, maybe even the radical humidity we are suffering right now in IN.,