84 XVZ1200 - no spark, electrical help plz

[spartikus]

Closing the loop on this. I think I had several issues that were combining here. Anyways before I got it to fire I did the following:

 

- Cleaned contacts for all 12V lines.

- Replaced the spark plugs

- Turned down the fuel on the carbs ~40%

 

The old girl cranked up right away. Ran a little rough for a couple minutes as it burned off all of the fuel that had been dumping in there. Now it runs like a top.

 

I tossed a half can of seafoam in just under half tank of fuel. Ran it for 20 mins. Drove it around the block. Runs great.

 

I put a little seafoam in the oil and ran it for another 5-10 and now I'm letting it rest. I'll let it sit for a few hours to give the seafoam a chance to work then I will bring it up to temp again and let it rest. Likely do an oil change tonight.

 

Bike runs awesome. Brakes are good. oh yeah and...

 

I HAVE SECOND GEAR!!! Or at least I appear to, will see how she behaves under load and hard pulling.

 

I want to thank everyone who provided assistance on this. Sure appreciated the support. A special thank you to Neil who made it his personal mission to get me all of the info I needed and was a rockstar helping a noob like myself through the pitfalls.

 

Man I got to say it's been 20+ years since I've ridden any kind of bike. An 800lb cruiser is going to take some real work to get used to. Drove it around the block a few times and I can see I really need to get comfortable leaning and cornering.

 

Good times.

 

Thanks a million folks.

 

Mark

[Neil86]

They are great bikes when they are running right....may you have many enjoyable miles

on your "new" bike!

[ThomasAdshade]

Hello if anyone can assist me that would be well appreciated.  So I have a 1984 Yamaha xvz1200. I went for a ride down the street to the store came back to apt building parked the bike. 5 minutes later went to go start the bike & it cranks & cranks but will not turn over. 

Things I've done. I checked primary coil & secondary coil like manual states. Readings came out fine. Then I thought it might be stator for some reason . Replaced it. Then bought coil caps because wasn't getting the 5 reading its suppose to give . Bought new pickup coil that's fine with readings. Then bought starter relay. Checked if I was getting power from battery to coils , I am . Checked kill switch it seems fine with multimeter reading. Fuses are ok not blown.  Any ideas? 

[ThomasAdshade]

So yeah no spark 

[Marcarl]

15 hours ago, ThomasAdshade said:

So yeah no spark 

How do you figure out that you have no spark?

[ThomasAdshade]

19 hours ago, ThomasAdshade said:

So yeah no spark 

I checked to see if I had spark at each cylinder  by putting spark plug in wire & testing against bike while cranking & no spark. 

[Marcarl]

Check out the TCI, located under the battery box. Maybe it just the connection being wet or loose, maybe you have internal problems. Do a search on TCI.

[saddlebum]

Pull the connectors off the TCI and give them a good cleaning with contact cleaner and tiny straps of fine emery cloth and compressed air. Be carefully cleaning the female terminals so as not to spread them. A male terminal identical to the ones in the connector works great to clean the female terminals and to drag test the female pins for loosenes. I like to follow up with a good dose of ACF 50 spray and move the connector in and out a few times and a final leave in dose when reassembling the connectors. I almost replced my TCI for no spark when I decided to give this a shot and the bike has run great ever since. That was 5 years ago. 

[ThomasAdshade]

On 4/2/2023 at 8:00 AM, saddlebum said:

Pull the connectors off the TCI and give them a good cleaning with contact cleaner and tiny straps of fine emery cloth and compressed air. Be carefully cleaning the female terminals so as not to spread them. A male terminal identical to the ones in the connector works great to clean the female terminals and to drag test the female pins for loosenes. I like to follow up with a good dose of ACF 50 spray and move the connector in and out a few times and a final leave in dose when reassembling the connectors. I almost replced my TCI for no spark when I decided to give this a shot and the bike has run great ever since. That was 5 years ago. 

Thanks I'll try that . 

[ThomasAdshade]

On 4/2/2023 at 5:56 AM, Marcarl said:

Check out the TCI, located under the battery box. Maybe it just the connection being wet or loose, maybe you have internal problems. Do a search on TCI.

Thanks will do

[ThomasAdshade]

On 4/2/2023 at 5:56 AM, Marcarl said:

Check out the TCI, located under the battery box. Maybe it just the connection being wet or loose, maybe you have internal problems. Do a search on TCI.

So I had a mobile mechanic come out & check the bike . What a waste of money . He told me it could be coils from his perspective or some loose wire/disconnected.  So I got some coils. While taking off old coils , saw that there was a crack on the bottom of one of the old  coils. Replaced coils but same thing. The bike cranks great pretty normal . But not turning over. I'm really new to the bike world more or less but know myself pretty good around an engine. But this has me super stumped. Please help anyone. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance. 

[Marcarl]

I believe that the coils are constant powered and then the ground side is disconnected to create spark. So you might have power at the coils but no spark. The ground would go then to the TCI to activate the spark.

 

[saddlebum]

Marcarl is correct. You should have constant 12v to each coil, the ground side of the coil is individually controlled by the TCI.

If you look at the schematic you will see that the there is a red/white wire that goes to the 8 pin connector at the TCI , each coil, pressure sensor, fuel pump relay and side stand relay. With ign on you should have 12 volts at each connection point.

You should also have constant ground via the black wire 0n the 8 pin plug to the TCI , fuel pump, fuel pump relay,  fall over sensor switch,

With all the fall over switch, side stand switch and relay all in the normal run position you should also have ground were the black/white wire connects to the TCI at the 6 pin plug.

Disconnect the 6 pin plug at the TCI and down by the frame at the stater Which goes to the pick up coils within the stater housing. With an ohmmeter check that you have continuity from the pin on one connector to the pin on the other connector for every wire. Also check the condition of the connector at the stater it is not uncommon for these to turn green in which you would either replace the connectors or just cut them out and hard wire the ends together. If this tests OK perform an ohmmeter test on the pick up coils themselves.

With the pickup coil 6 pin connector disconnected check resistance for each coil by connecting one test lead to the black wire and with the other test lead touch each of the other wires you should get ( approx 93.5 to 126.5 ohms ) for each one any one that does meet this spec indicates a pickup coil fault of some sort. Open line reading is an open connection or broken wire to its related coil lower than 93.5 or full continuity would indicate a short of some type.

 

 

 

[ThomasAdshade]

I wanna thank everyone that assisted me on this platform.  You are all very awesome.  I got bike running . Took apart the harness & found bad connection not allowing bike to have spark. Fixed it, now bike runs wonderfully.  Thank you all very much for your wisdom & ideas.