my 83' wants to run but just wont :(

Hey everyone. New to the forums here and new to ventures. I picked up an 83' which had been sitting for probaly5+ years.

I had it running last year but it was running really rough and chugging fuel like a frat boy chugs 4loco.

So I ended up tearing the carbs apart and cleaning them. Got it back together and now the bike runs rough (though it starts a lot easier).

I can tell she really wants to run but something is holding her back, I am guessing the timing. The tach jumps all over the place and sometimes just sits at zero while running. I have already remounted my TCI and found that the bosst sensor is bad (its putting out 6.3v at atmospheric pressure). Even with that unplugged it runs rough. I also get lots of backfires, mostly just little puffs from the #2 carb. I have also tested the fuses and coils which seem to be good. dash cluster works fine as well.

I know all the timing is computer controlled which I hate, I almost exclusivly have owned 80's vechicles because of how easy they are to work with due to lack of computers. That said, for the few seconds at a time when the bike decides to run right I can understand why people love these bikes so much.

Anyways, I go another boost sensor on the way and after reading some threads here got brave enough to cut open my TCI and think I found a few issues in it but could use some help as to what I should actually do with it (I do have honed soldering skills) Here are a few images of it. The bottom of the board looks good, that black wire I added in as the eched in wire looked like it was on it way out. As for the top of the board, I think it speaks for itself.

Thanks in advance for the help and hope to be able to ride alongside some of the Pacifc North West members soon!

UPDATE:

So as I was getting into doing some basic cleaning on board and removing the brown sealer as it is covering some corrosion in spots, this (see image below) part broke right where the wire comes out of it and I litterally just sneezed on it. so needless to say thats probable part of my problem. Which now brings the question, what is it and where do I get a new one?

Also are there any schematics out there so I can replace any other parts that decide to break off during cleaning?

UPDATE:

 

So as I was getting into doing some basic cleaning on board and removing the brown sealer as it is covering some corrosion in spots, this (see image below) part broke right where the wire comes out of it and I litterally just sneezed on it. so needless to say thats probable part of my problem. Which now brings the question, what is it and where do I get a new one?

 

Also are there any schematics out there so I can replace any other parts that decide to break off during cleaning?

No image attached...

Sorry, where are my manners.

LOL. Thank you for the heads up and the welcome. I must have gotten trigger happy and posted before the image loaded. here it is. Its one of those little blue bits. Im thinking its a diode?

Look in the 1st gen tech library at bottom of the forum page. There are a couple TCI articles. Once you get it keep in mind that these bikes will run like that if you have the air box open. They need that restriction to run. Welcome to the nut house.

You said you cleaned the carbs, but did you synchronize them?

Also when you checked the coils, did you check the caps and wires? The resistors in the plug caps can go bad and the spikes get corroded. Trim back a half inch or so of wire at each end or just replace them. Bulk spark plug wire is cheap.

I fought ignition problems when I got my '83. I had 2 bad coils, bad wires and a bad TCI.

Look in the 1st gen tech library at bottom of the forum page. There are a couple TCI articles. Once you get it keep in mind that these bikes will run like that if you have the air box open. They need that restriction to run. Welcome to the nut house.

I have been living in that library for the past 24 hours. And what a godsend it is. Has been emensly helpful.

I had no idea that It actually NEEDS the air restriction. That changes a lot.

Given that components in the TCI litterally fell off at the touch of a q-tip, i'm guessin thats probably my biggest problem right now. Trying to find replacement bits is really hard. (talking about the ETD41-035 transistors specifically). I might just cave and get the aftermarket TCI everyone is talking about on here.

And thanks for the welcome, I'm no stranger to working on older cars and bikes (my former bike was an 87' Honda v45 Magna) but this computer controller stuff is driving me mad, mainly because I have the skill to fix it, but cant find the parts too. Wish my 3D printer could make electrical components.

You said you cleaned the carbs, but did you synchronize them?

 

Also when you checked the coils, did you check the caps and wires? The resistors in the plug caps can go bad and the spikes get corroded. Trim back a half inch or so of wire at each end or just replace them. Bulk spark plug wire is cheap.

I did a bench sync on the carbs after I put them back together, which did seem to give it a much better chance at running than before. I also replaced the caps and wires along with the spark plugs. All connectors and pins have been checked, cleaned, and greased. All coil and pick-up tests have come back within spec with the exception of the boost sensor which is putting out 6.3V at atmospheric pressure.

As far as I can tell at this point and after spenidng the day in the library and checking everything over 100 times; it seems like everything is in really good shape and tuned well enough to get it running, its just the TCI being in barely good enough shape for it to fire. Unfortunetly I dont have anyone in the area (willamte valley Oregon) with a good TCI that I can plug in to see if thats the only outstanding issue now.

BTW the brown stuff on your board that looks like somebody threw up on it is quite normal, it's called a conformal coating and it's on there on purpose! It's there for waterproofing!

Yes, there are altogether 8 diodes on the board that can and do go bad and should be replaced with 1N400(X) (ie 1N4001, 1N4002, etc)

If your tach is bouncing around it is most likely a bad coil trigger signal to the #2 coil which also drives the tach...

BTW the '83 TCI can only be replaced with another TCI from an '83 because of where the vacuum comes from for the advance. they are 180 degrees out of phase from the '84 - '89. Also, the '90 thru '93 only uses one pickup coil for ignition sense as opposed to two coils on the '83 - '89. You can get the '84 - '89 to work on the '83 but you have to change the vacuum from the carburetor to manifold vacuum, or if you are really good, change the polarity on the vacuum (boost) sensor...

BTW the brown stuff on your board that looks like somebody threw up on it is quite normal, it's called a conformal coating and it's on there on purpose! It's there for waterproofing!

Yes, there are altogether 8 diodes on the board that can and do go bad and should be replaced with 1N400(X) (ie 1N4001, 1N4002, etc)

If your tach is bouncing around it is most likely a bad coil trigger signal to the #2 coil which also drives the tach...

Hey bongobobny. I am aware that the brown stuff is put there by the factory, but I could see through it that there was a fair amount of corrosion underneath it. This was confirmed as I started to peel it away and lots of white power was underneath it.

I did find the diodes, but unfortunetly the 4 main transistors which look like they are going bad on my board are nearly impossible to find.

I had some idea about the #2 coil being the real driving force behind the TCI and tach but wasnt certain, so thank you for clearing that up for me. Everything on the bike tested out good except the boost sensor and TCI. I am pretty sure the circut that runs the #2 on the board is in the worst shape. After doing some reasearch on how hard it is to find the trasnsitors and diodes along with some horror stories of TCI repairs being a bottomless pit to hell, I decided to take the high road and just purchase the IGNITECH sparker. Cost all of $200 delivered and includes the serial-USB addapter and programing software.

There is another post on here that talks about the IGNITECH not having the boost sensor ability, but that was back in 2009 I think, they told me that they would have it programed and plug&play ready for my 83', boost sensor and all but there is a bit of a language barrier so we shall see. Should show up by the end of the week fingers corssed and we'll see what happens. I'll be sure to update this post as I go along as well as update the post IGNITECH post as I think some things have changed.

Hey All,

So I got the new sparker for IGNITECH and it seems to have done the trick! Bike runs solid (could use some minor tuning/dynamic carb sync) but it looks like that was the real hangup. I think final step for it is to get the cooling fan working and do the blade fuse block swapout.

Replacement power transistor is ST901T