Gone but NOT forgotten. AAAARRRGH!

Happy Season of Mellowness, Understanding, and putting up with My Stupid Sister-in-Law-mas! I hope everyone's Holidaze have been tender and mild. Need a little long-distance troubleshooting from the SMOE (Smartest Motorscooterists on Earth).

So I traded the Venture. Don't hate me. It just sat in the garage looking forlorn, unridden and just sad, like that old girlfriend/ ex-wife who you split with but still lives with you because life happens. Had it on CL and a local version out here called Bookoo for most of the year and finally heard from a nice gent in Old El Paso who had a dirt bike he didn't ride that also just sat in the garage. Would I be interested in a trade? Well shucks, shoot and Egads Man, that's how I came by the XVZ in the first place. Bring it on.

Issues arose right away but I'll turn to the last page and quit boring y'all. After delivery/ devilry, the Venture started just dying on him and wouldn't restart. I chocked it up the battery turning 3 so I reimbursed him for a new one and he went back to El Paso. Since then the agony has continued for the understanding gentleman. He'll be blasting along and the thing will unceremoniously quit. Crank-crank-crank, nada. Wait a few, crank-crank-crank-VROOM-VROOM, back in bidness.

I had put the Ignitech TCI on it but had a spare 26H that I was gonna put on the forum, so I threw that in the truck and promised to hand it over when I got back from my Christmas trip to Sin City, the Garden State, the World Series Champs home and all parts in between. Upon touchdown in ELP I texted him I was there and, once again, he was stranded by the little 1200cc scooter. Crank-crank-crank-nada. Gimme th e address, I'm enroute.

After apologizing profusely, falling on my sword and groveling at his feet, I swapped the TCIs and it fired right up. Yippee! Problem solved!!

:bang head: If only. 'Twas not to be. First minute or two it was fine, then the tach dropped to 0 and the engine bogged. If you rev it a little the tach recovered, the engine started hitting on all four again and all was right. Let the throttle off and the tach would drop out and the motor would bog. Leave it at 1000 rpm and all was steady. So now it sounds like the #2 cylinder is dropping out at low rpm, taking the tach signal with it.

I'm still 3 hours from home, it's now dark, and I've been up since early east-coast, including having to go back to the gate in Newark to fix a maintenence issue that put us an hour late into Houston (if any of you was on my flight I'm sorry, we appreciate your patience and hope you'll think of us when your travel needs blahblahblah). So since it was okay to ride we shook hand and I headed for New Mexico.

I hadn't gotten out of the city when the phone rings. Yep, you guessed it, he was beside himself as the little Yamaha that could couldn't after all. Exact same issue as originally, VROOM-VROOM-dead. So apparently it wasn't the Ignitech.

He's 2 and a half hours away but I gotta get this sorted. I may take my trailer down there and bring it back here or load up as many tools as I can think of, leave early and spend the day working on it. I'd rather have it here but what a PITA this has turned into. When I put the 26H TCI on it I plugged the advance under the battery box back up correctly to the #2 carb port ( I know y'all are wondering). I checked the plug for corrosion and security. I checked the COP on the #2 cylinder to make sure it was secure and properly connected. I checked the wires in the TCI plugs for security, corrosion, loose or broken wires. The fuse box is the new type that I had replaced a few years back; all that was secure.

I did NOT look at the kill or ignition switches as I only thought of them after I had left the scene of the crime. Both are ebay replacements for the rusty junk that was on the bike when I got it. I don't remember doing anything with the kill switch, but I had the igntion switch apart because it was causing an intermittent non-charging issue because of sticky internals; BUT that may have been the original switch, all of the particulars are lost in the antiquity of time. I have pictures of the switch apart but can't tell which one it is.

I put fresh premium in it before I traded it, and I think he's running the same. It has COPs, a new gel battery, new fuse box, new battery cables from here, replaced side stand and kill switches. The cluster is modified for running LEDs, also from this site. Whatever else I've forgotten to mention, ask away. To me it sounds like one of those all-too-easy-to-find loose or nearly broken wires or connector pins, or loose solder somewhere in the 95 miles of wiring and circuit boardery. I'll probably start at the kill switch and ignition after making sure there's no single wire that could cause all this. I'm digging through the wiring schematic to make sure I'm not missing something simple.

So there. Have I beaten out Half-Pipe (Puc) for lengthiest post?

Just looked at Dingy's pdf on cleaning the kill switch and I remember now I had to do some soldering on the two wires going to the tiny circuit board in that switch. Seems suspicious, guess I'll start there after all.

FWIW, every gremlin is a bit different. When I had a similar issue while trying to get home from Dons MD, I ended up finding 3 possible issues that could have each by themselves caused the intermittent dying.

1. broken kill switch. I scrounged a new one.

2. there are 2 black wires connected to the battery Negative post, one is the heavy one that goes to the engine block for the starter current, and the other one is smaller that goes to a 1 pin connector and then to frame ground. The one pin connector on mine had at some point in its life gotten doused in battery acid and was very corroded, I cut that out and made it a one piece wire from battery to frame.

3. In a connector in the dash the red/white wire, (same wire that goes to the kill switch) had a bad factory crimp to the terminal in the connector while I was wiggling wires this one simply fell out of the terminal. I soldered it back into the terminal.

Any one of these could have been causing my issues so I have no idea which one fixed it. But I spent a month chasing wires around the bike to find them.

FWIW, every gremlin is a bit different. When I had a similar issue while trying to get home from Dons MD, I ended up finding 3 possible issues that could have each by themselves caused the intermittent dying.

 

1. broken kill switch. I scrounged a new one.

2. there are 2 black wires connected to the battery Negative post, one is the heavy one that goes to the engine block for the starter current, and the other one is smaller that goes to a 1 pin connector and then to frame ground. The one pin connector on mine had at some point in its life gotten doused in battery acid and was very corroded, I cut that out and made it a one piece wire from battery to frame.

3. In a connector in the dash the red/white wire, (same wire that goes to the kill switch) had a bad factory crimp to the terminal in the connector while I was wiggling wires this one simply fell out of the terminal. I soldered it back into the terminal.

 

Any one of these could have been causing my issues so I have no idea which one fixed it. But I spent a month chasing wires around the bike to find them.

Thank you sir. I figure it's going to be an issue like that so the best thing will be to bring the bike back here where I have access to all my stuff or try to work the problem there. The new owner has professed to not being very savvy on working on things like the Venture.

flyday58,

I gotta say, I wish every PO was as conscientious as you are! Most would have forgotten about that bike and the new owner 2 minutes after the transaction was over.

GOOD ON YOU SIR!!!!

I wish you good luck and God speed in finding the problem and once again, thank you for being such a good guy.

Regards,

Rich

Fuel pump. Mine acted very similar. Would run down road fine one day. Then another day you could be crusin and bike would stutter then just bog out. Sit a few minutes (almost like had to cool off or something) then start and run fine. If you choked it some and it had enough gas in tank it would "free flow" enough to sort of run. Could be an ignition switch I suppose that looses contact. But usually once they make contact and bike runs, it runs they dont cut out.

Fuel pump. Mine acted very similar. Would run down road fine one day. Then another day you could be crusin and bike would stutter then just bog out. Sit a few minutes (almost like had to cool off or something) then start and run fine. If you choked it some and it had enough gas in tank it would "free flow" enough to sort of run. Could be an ignition switch I suppose that looses contact. But usually once they make contact and bike runs, it runs they dont cut out.

I'm considering this, too. I played hell getting the fuel pump to work after I replaced the points in it. In texts I've asked if he can hear the fuel pump clicking when he first keys up but he hasn't answered yet. And above I said I had resoldered the wires on the kill switch, but I remembered earlier today that it was actually the switch on a different bike, not this one. I had a spare right-side switch for the XVZ in my junk box and when I took it apart it didn't look familiar, so I guess I never fooled with the kill switch on this bike.

I feel like the Yamaha shop because I know this bike in and out, and everything I've done to it. I just wish it wasn't 3 hours away now, definitely making it hard to get sorted. Thanks for everybody's advice.

FWIW, every gremlin is a bit different. When I had a similar issue while trying to get home from Dons MD, I ended up finding 3 possible issues that could have each by themselves caused the intermittent dying.

 

1. broken kill switch. I scrounged a new one.

2. there are 2 black wires connected to the battery Negative post, one is the heavy one that goes to the engine block for the starter current, and the other one is smaller that goes to a 1 pin connector and then to frame ground. The one pin connector on mine had at some point in its life gotten doused in battery acid and was very corroded, I cut that out and made it a one piece wire from battery to frame.

3. In a connector in the dash the red/white wire, (same wire that goes to the kill switch) had a bad factory crimp to the terminal in the connector while I was wiggling wires this one simply fell out of the terminal. I soldered it back into the terminal.

 

Any one of these could have been causing my issues so I have no idea which one fixed it. But I spent a month chasing wires around the bike to find them.

Hey Jeff B, just read your whole thread "Hold your breath, I'm going in", lots of good info in there from everybody involved. I'm going to use it as a simplified 'How-To" for the op. You cleared up some things for me in the schematics; I'm usually competent at running wires but the differences between the 83 and 84-85 diagrams have me shaking my head (the right switch is from an 85 with cruise, along with the main harness, cluster and assorted stuff to make it all work; all else is 83). And without the bike present to take a gander at I'm forced to rely on the old noodle, which is starting to get hard and crusty and has an escalating case of CRS.

So once again a big shout-out and thanks for the write-up, even though the pics are gone (I assume they were from photobucket). So hold your breath, I'm goin in...

OOPS I opened my mouth and didnt check the model. First gens dont have as much problems with the fuel pump. Also is the a tank vent? MA61amech has mentioned many times on the secnd gens to check the tank vent. Is there one on the 1st gen?

I think this only applied to the early first gens, though the symptoms are not quite the same. When this happened to me it ran onto two cylinders, rather than completely cutting out. The rev counter may have dropped too, but the problem was fifteen - twenty years ago, so I'm not sure. Some of the pick-ups were wired too tight in the crank cover (inside the plastic mouldings) and lost contact when they warmed up and expanded - or that was the description at the time. TBH, no-one else has mentioned this issue for years, so I suspect all the bad parts have been swapped out already.

Do you have any way of checking if the plugs are still sparking when it stops without waiting for it to cool down ? I'm thinking by using a timing strobe light that connects over the HT lead, just to confirm if the issue is electrical or fuel related ?

If you know which is the issue it will be much easier to diagnose.

I think this only applied to the early first gens, though the symptoms are not quite the same. When this happened to me it ran onto two cylinders, rather than completely cutting out. The rev counter may have dropped too, but the problem was fifteen - twenty years ago, so I'm not sure. Some of the pick-ups were wired too tight in the crank cover (inside the plastic mouldings) and lost contact when they warmed up and expanded - or that was the description at the time. TBH, no-one else has mentioned this issue for years, so I suspect all the bad parts have been swapped out already.

 

Do you have any way of checking if the plugs are still sparking when it stops without waiting for it to cool down ? I'm thinking by using a timing strobe light that connects over the HT lead, just to confirm if the issue is electrical or fuel related ?

 

If you know which is the issue it will be much easier to diagnose.

Taking all that stuff with me in the morning as I dispatch myself to ELP to work on it. Bringing extra plugs, my spark tester, might even bring the Carb Tune for good measure.I've got an extra right handlebar switch and ignition switch which will be making the trip, too. The way it's acting, from what the NO is telling me, is the bike acts like you hit the kill switch. I'm leaning away from the switch itself as the bike turns over but won't start. The very first thing I'll do is listen for click-click-click from the fuel pump, and if it starts then dies check for spark, then gas in the carbs. NO said yesterday he put the Ignitek back on and now it won't start. Stay tuned...

when I had my 83 would die the same way. stuck my hand into the triple tree and wiggled the harness boom fixed for a short time. but made it home. The wire to main fuse was chewed on by my pet I never knew I had. and one wire was rubbed through on the neck would touch ground.

In the 150,000 miles I have put on my 83, I got stranded one time and was towed. I had taken a ride over into KY alone and the bike was running great. Then, I started getting some jerking and pulled into a shopping center to check it out. It would sometime start and run a few seconds and quit cold, so I suspected it was electrical. After checking everything I could think of, I called a member on here and he was able to pick me up and get me home. After checking for power everywhere, I narrowed it down to the red power wire in the connection on the TCI. Evidently, the terminal had sprung open enough to feed intermittent power to the blade.

One thing I feel was a plus out of this was when checking power to the TCI, I was finding a bit less than 12 volts with the switch on. I ended up cutting into the power wire and used it to power a simple relay to deliver 12+ volts from the battery. The bike ran better after that. This was about a $3 mod.

Randy

I hope the trip and the operation was successful. Having had time to think about it, you said it sounded like #2 was cutting and killing the tacho,which suggests the main issue is not fuel. Knowing how many cylinders were missing would help diagnose, but hopefully you're home again and have reached a solution, one way or the other.

To quote Major Frank Burns, "nurtz"! Spent all day Saturday and found nothing. The old girl didn't miss a beat and rode like a dream, great acceleration, no hesitation, just kept going and going and going. I found one bad crimp on my fuse panel swap to blades, but it was for the headlight. So I checked all the crimps and redid them while I was at it. I pushed and pulled on every connector and wire I could get at that relates to ignition without unwrapping the wire loom/ bundle, checked all the relay connections, looked for corrosion I might have missed before.

The ONLY real smoking gun happened after I first cranked her up. I was able to get two very subjective-sounding stumbles by applying thumb pressure to the Ignitech box, but then couldn't reproduce it the rest of the day. I even put the box in the freezer for a bit because it had gotten fairly toasty sitting in the El Paso sun, but it worked like a champ.

I unplugged the fuel pump and let it starve to verify the symptoms. And of course they are different; when it dies it just quits as if the kill switch had been used, but as the fuel runs out it starts to stutter and surge before quitting. Then when you try to start it, she will try to fire off as some remaining gas gets in. I'm quite sure it's not a fuel issue ( petrol for Greg_in_London;))

Took the emergency stop/ kill switch apart and cleaned the contacts ( they already were), verified correct ops of the sidestand switch and relay, pulled each COP plug off in turn to verify all four were firing (ran on three each time, with #2 also killing the tach but the bike still starting up and running), checked the right switch harness plug, wiggled the ignition switch and key, tugged on every plug and wire I could reach, including the pick-up connectors and wires on the left side frame.

When I rode it I went fast, I went slow, I hit bumps, I cranked the steering hard over left and right looking for anything but she ran perfect. The NO says it's even running better after we put it back together, but he had added Seafoam to the gas so that may be it, or it could be purely subjective. And for G_I_L, the cutting out of the tacho was when we tried the old 26H TCI last week. NO such issues with the Ignitech.

With all that, I had a blast hanging out with the NO. He started me off with a nice steaming cup of mint mocha coffee while I took the old gal's outer garments off ever-so-slowly, like you do with old flames you haven't seen in a while. THE VENTURE COVERS GUYS, JEEZ!! The gentleman really enjoyed seeing the bike apart and seemed impressed with how much I knew about the thing. I tried to show him all my mods and where to look if certain things happened, although he says he's not very mechanically inclined. He's an electrical engineer but tells me it doesn't apply to bikes or cars, at least not for him.

We have similar music tastes, so he put on the big-screen in his garage and we watched and listened to videos of Joni Mitchell, The Blasters, Pat Metheny, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Glen Campbell, great guitarists all. Then he gets out an old Stratocaster and plays through an old tube amp while I'm yanking on wires. Our religious values are also the same so we had plenty to chat about there. Finally I put everything back together and we went and had a late lunch before I headed back home.

Without having found any real issues I'm not confident I did anything to fix it. He took it out on the highway after I left and said it flew, no issues. I hope they find happiness together (sniff) and many miles of happy trails. On a side note, a buddy of his pulled up on a 1981 CB750 as I was getting ready to leave. It's in pristine unrestored non-bobbered livery, so trying to talk the wife into thinking there's absolutely nothing wrong with having another motorcycle in the garage. 5 scoots, 6 scoots, what's the diff?

If the intermittent issue comes back you may have to go the LED monitor route.

Connect an LED to the Red/White wire at the TCI and another one to the Black/White wire at the TCI.

That way at the moment that the engine is quitting the LEDs will tell you if that wire is causing the problem.

The LED on the Black white wire is watching for a ground, so it will light if there is a problem. The LED on the Red white wire is watching power so it will turn off with a problem.

You may end up needing more LEDs to monitor other wires in the system until you find the culprit

If the intermittent issue comes back you may have to go the LED monitor route.

Connect an LED to the Red/White wire at the TCI and another one to the Black/White wire at the TCI.

That way at the moment that the engine is quitting the LEDs will tell you if that wire is causing the problem.

 

The LED on the Black white wire is watching for a ground, so it will light if there is a problem. The LED on the Red white wire is watching power so it will turn off with a problem.

 

You may end up needing more LEDs to monitor other wires in the system until you find the culprit

Thanks. If the nightmare returns I may have to pick your brain on exactly how to do this. Sounds simple in theory. Still can't believe I couldn't get it to act up at all. So far I haven't heard anything. Fingers crossed...