Diodes

[Ottawa]

At last I took the plunge and followed the good advice offered here and replaced the diodes in the TCI unit. All I can say is that its is worth doing and easier then I thought. The bike now definitely runs better and as you will see from the photos I think I did this just in time!!!

 

 

First I got ready for a long and tedious amount of work! Coffee!!!!

 

 

 

Then I went and took skydoc's advice and soldered everything I could solder including the CMU.

 

The rest of the images show the damaged diodes and the work I did.

For anyone wondering what failing diodes look like I think I may have found the proof!! When I touched then, they just fell apart.

 

I hope this encourages anyone thinking about this to do it. All you need is a soldering iron with a fine point and the diodes sold at The Source (Radio Shack) Item # 2761653. This is an assortment of 25 diodes and there are 10 diodes in there that will replace the old ones. (1N4001). They fit easily into the existing holes left by the old diodes.

 

I will be looking for another one to fix and have as a spare for sure.

[dingy]

Much better than troubleshooting non firing cylinders.

 

I would have skipped the coffee myself, to delicate of soldering.

 

One thing that a few others have found a little easier, but less elegant, is to cut the plastic housing open. They then RTV sealed it back up.

 

The hardest part of this to me was unsoldering the board from the case pins. The diodes can be done one lead at a time, but there are 14 leads on the case/board junction that all have to come loose together.

 

 

Gary

[JoeKanuck]

I'm one of those that cut the case open. I'm pretty good with a soldering iron but decided that with a board this ancient, the less abuse, the better. As it was, one trace lifted while I was desoldering the diodes.

 

I also relocated the TCI to above the air cleaner.

 

So far, I have over 2 thousand kilometers on the repaired TCI with no problems.