Vickersguy

It would appear you have a well maintained example of an '83. I do note that you have an '86- and up front end with the electric anti-dive system.The clutch cover with the intact lettering suggests you have a keeper. Its just beautiful. As for the "clunking" in the front end,, that may be the result of incorrectly set steering neck bearings. You should lift the front wheel off the ground while you have it on the center stand and check for slop in the front end. E-bay is your friend. Most parts, with the exception of the ignition system and the rear brake master cylinder, are usually available, eventually, if you keep your eye peeled. I'm a fan of the gold of the original but that's not important. Epoxy and fiberglass will fix 95% of the plastic issues. Another fine fix you may have in your upgraded front forks might be the bleed nipple up by the hazard light switch. Hopefully you have one there. To add detail to the Cow Puc or Puc Puc comments, he bought Ventures with bad second gears for short money and then, without fixing the second gear, ran the bike out to 200,000 miles. He did this several times and did over half a million miles on these no second gear bikes. I will share a pic of mine.

Wow, OK. It will be a bit. Got to take it off the machine.

You have an 83. The 86 brake calipers are completely different. It won't fit your bike.

I'll go check, probably have one. Take a bit to get it off.

Hey Claahky, Just red your post. I'll check. Be right back with the word if I have one. I probably do.

I have one too. In case there is a snafu.

So What's the shipping to North Carolina....... 28571.......

I wonder if it's the same as an '83 ?

We're at 34 Trillion in debt. I might be wrong, but my high school math seems to show this: The Universe we know is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old. The debt is 34 trillion. That works out to $6.70 every day.... SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

What Numbers ? Oh yeah, these numbers.. U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Politics aside, the numbers don't lie. Reminds me of a cute little story. The office OMB asked for bids to fix a hole in the White House fence and got two bids. One bid was from a contractor in West Virginia, the other was from Chicago. The West Virginia guy pulled out a pad of paper and a measuring tape, worked out the bid with materials and labor. OMB guy says "what you got ?" $7000, he says. $3000 for me, $3000 for my crew, and $1000 for materials. The Chicago guy paid no attention. The OMB guy says, "Well ? You didn't do any figuring that I could see. Do you have a bid ?" "Sure"', says the Chicago guy, " $27,000 . " How do you figure that ?" says the OMB guy. $10,000 for me, $10,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Virginia to fix the fence.

Got the ignition system installed and went for a ride. Much better. I need to dial in the mixture for perfection. Got home and found the right front brake caliper leaked all over the place.... It's always sumpin..

I'll go to my parts box tomorrow and see if I have one.

Thank you ! This is the information I needed. There were quite a few older threads about refining the ign. curve. I didn't know if that had been sorted out.

I dunno, the price difference is huge, Carmo is $366 and the Igniteck is $150. Whadya do to get the ignition dialed in on the Yamaha using the Igniteck ? The thought of figuring out the advance curves and then loading them into the ignition system is, to say the least, daunting. I'd hate to have a limp wrist-ed advance curve rather than a match to factory original. All the talk I've heard about CD's required to load the curve and so forth is really off-putting. Is there anyone on the board here who has the correct curves ? I dunno...

Hey there "40 ! The Vacuum sensor is the difference, you are right. I just spent some time going over the wire diagrams. Some last minute checking needed, but hear me out on this. A late model 84 to 90 boost sensor is only $5.88 on Pinwall/E-bay. As far as I can tell, that is the only difference on the Mk-1 Ventures ignition system. ( Also the location of the vacuum port ) Even the position of the wires on the plugs to the box seems the same. Only the colors changed, not their locations on the plugs. Therefore, I can use any box I wish as long as I use the correct boost sensor. The only way that won't work is if the pickup coils in the case are somehow wire different internally, inside the coils. I need to check the ohms resistance on the earlier coils to the late coils in the manual. I have a Ignition Box off an '86. That bike didn't run worth a damn either. It had ignition problems too. I just opened up the '86 box and it has the same suspect blue/white diodes as well. I think I'll swap out the diodes and get the $5 boost sensor and see it that will work. My riding season is about shot anyway so what's to loose ? So I order the new black box if it won't work. I changed my mind. I think I'll buy this box from the Netherlands instead of Igniteck. Yamaha XVZ1200 Venture Royal igniter ignition module CDI TCI Box TID14-17, 26H-10 [CARI-YA-XVZ1200-VENTURE-ROYAL-TID14-17-26H-10 XVZ1200 CDI] - €349,00 : Carmo Electronics, The place for parts or electronics for your Motorbike Quad Scooter Car or Jetski

Original type, tin coated solid copper stranded, 19 strands. OEM style. Resistor caps and plugs. I've done everything practical that can be done. I have 9 coils here and I find the probability they are ALL bad, vanishingly small. Ohmed out the entire ignition electrical system to be sure i have full voltage to the coils and the box. Checked all the safety switches and so forth. Re-soldered ALL the connections in the box to cover for cold solder joints. Cleaned all the connectors. etc.etc. My understanding is that the big 4 transistors switch off the ground path for the low voltage side of the coils. This causes the spark when the low voltage field collapses. If, in fact, there is some other pathway to ground, of relatively high resistance, there might be only a partial collapse of the field, resulting in a reduced energy spark. That's my theory, anyway. There may be some other diode on the board "leaking" or it's something else entirely. Don't know. I'm thinking an aftermarket TCI may be the only way out. Can't afford one right now. At the rate I'm going, the new tires I put on it will age out before I get this on the road. Me too. I'll be 70 next month. After all the noise I heard over the ignitek box, I'm thinking this one might be the one I get. https://www.cdireplacement.com/cdi-products/yamaha-xvz1200-venture-royal-igniter-tid14-17-26h-10-cdi-replacement/

Changed out the diodes, good news is I didn't kill the box. Bad news, it's no better...

Also, re-soldering the board will be done thoroughly. To quote the Virago guys... Galvanic Corrosion The space between unsealed connectors contains oil, moisture, fingerprints, dirt, ...etc. Also, being open to the world's contaminates, these things can seep and leach into the micro voids between the connector surfaces. Enter "Galvanic corrosion", where ionic interchange between disimilar metals acts like a corrosive battery, producing compounds that can interfere with good current flow, even making it act like a semiconductor diode. A good place for dielectric grease. Inter metallic corrosion Many brass and copper connectors are tin plated, and the fine border between those two dissimilar metals is closed to the outside elements. However, a strange long-term migration and intermixing of those metals occurs in that thin layer, leading to a form of inter metallic corrosion, which can also interfere with good current flow. Same can occur at the boundary of a substrate and a layer of solder, which can include boundary cracking of the solder. These types of degradation take many years to form, not an issue within normal life expectancy of typical vehicles. But, becomes real after 30 years or more. We studied this back in the 80's, as part of determining the MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) of various electronics products. These pictures represent similar biopsy-like micro cross-sections of tin plated copper-clad printed circuit boards. What all this means, is that with the age of our bikes, electrical problems can occur which defy normal diagnostic expectations. For example, you could have a failed wire connector which still shows appropriate voltage, but won't deliver current to a device, like a light bulb. This was my experience three years ago with a failed turn signal bulb. The contact at the bulb base showed voltage, but the bulb wouldn't light up. Maddening. Traced it to inter metallic corrosion within the contact face. Cleaned up the face and re-tinned it, works fine...

So the bike runs like garbage. Marcal feels it's the carbs and I agree with him. The spark still sucks, however. In Post #28 back up the page I posted a picture of some bad blue/white diodes that were badly degraded next to my beautiful as-new looking diodes. I read in a virago post on another board that even the good looking ones can be bad. I picked the easiest diode to pull for a check and wadya know ! I had hoped they were good because they looked good. I'm going to change them all.

First thing first, I remounted the TCI on the air box. I'm going to do some checks there on the way to the carbs, Just to be sure, So back to the wispy red spark thread........

Such an Historical rush !! Thank you for taking the time to share this !

Have 9 coils total here, all check out good, swapped some out with no change in operation. New wires of the correct type, new plug caps with 5K resistance, new plugs of the correct type, only fair spark, nothing great. I'm agreeing with you. Must be something about the carbs I missed. At least I can skip pulling the motor, for now....

Thanks for reminding me to hold the throttle plate open. Forgot ! New readings, 172, 174, 177, 180. Good news. Except now I have no clue why this bike runs so poorly.