XJ750mk just won't stop dying on me.

Alright, so it's a new season and I'm back with more issues with what seems to be proving itself as one of the more temperamental examples of the otherwise neato XJ line.

AS A RECAP: I've done the whole carb exorcism thing. I had those things off something like five times last year, I've poked and prodded at jets big and small, I've replaced bowl gaskets and throttle shaft seals, and I tried my damnedest to give it a good synch with the dual jar fluid manometer I built for the purpose. I'd like to say that outside of it sometimes seeming a bit iffy in wet weather, liking to die a little easier than when it was dry, it was running pretty damn well otherwise.

I put it away with a full tank to prevent rust, but I disconnected the vacuum line from the petcock and ran it until it died to clear the carburetors because after the pain I went through with the carburetors already I didn't feel like having to deal with the little buggers gooing up again, or whatever their problem was last time.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM: ever since I brought it back out upon springs overly late arrival to the great american swamp, a.k.a. the north eastern US, it's been running terribly. If it's humid at all (and it's been nothing but every day) then the bike randomly dies. I don't get any kind of gurgling, choking, dip into the 600rpms or anything like that. It's more like there's a damn gremlin hitting my emergency cutoff switch.
Best part of this is that it doesn't simply start up when I hit the start button. Nope, instead it turns over just fine but refuses to catch. It'll die and I'm going 30+mph and I can try like hell to bumpstart it before friction finally brings me to a halt and it just won't catch. Instead I have to sit at the side of the road and wait for it to decide it's done misbehaving, and it finally catches. Brand spanking new battery.
Combine this with what's either a hanging idle or simply an idle adjustment screw that won't dial in a proper idle. If I set it to idle at 1300 after about a minute since I started it cold, by the time I'm done with a 6 minute ride to the store or whatever it's idling closer to 2000 which is yeah I know too damn high. I try to bring it back down to a reasonable idle when it's finally at what I'd think is its warmest temperature and it hangs, hangs, hangs, and I fight to get it to idle at 1100-1400, but I tend to go for the higher range because of course as soon as I'm coming back to start it after my shopping it's refusing to run for all of 5 minutes without choke.
I have new throttle shaft seals in this bike. I doused it in various chemicals last year trying to find an intake leak and couldn't find one other than the shaft seals, which again I did. I'm iffy about trying to resynch the carbs or screw with the fuel screws again because I think I had it dialed in about as correctly as I am myself capable of.
Tank has some remnants of last falls gas, but it's more fresh than old and I've got a bit of seafoam (not more than recommended by bottle) just to help if there was any gunking, which I pray to the being that made me is minor because I don't want to pull those things out again, ever.

I really want to love this bike, it's my first bike, I've learned a whole lot, I like UJMs and the promise they made of a simple, cheap, efficient machine that could do a bit of everything, but I'm feeling like I'm losing a bit of the faith.

I just wanted to see if any of the great and infinitely-more-patient-than-I-am gods of this site could bless me with any kind of good news or advice.

 

If it only likes to play with you when it's humid, the coils may be the problem. A crack in them could cause shorts, giving you all kinds of weird voltages to the plugs.

Are ignition coils original? Do they look cracked? Test the primary and secondary resistance.

I remember someone once saying you can see them arcing in the dark, but I can't confirm that.

 

The coils are to the best of my knowledge original. It's so hard to tell on this poor bike, I can only guess that it had a very hard life before I got it.

While the bike had me stranded in front of my gym an hour ago I tried to look at the coils while also feeling about for exhaust leaks. We probably read the same post regarding arcing in the dark, but if it was I couldn't see it. Doesn't help that the tank does a good job of obscuring everything, it was very wet out, and I have no idea where the arcing is actually supposed to occur. The many times I had the tank off last year I didn't see any kind of apparent damage to the coils, though it's hard to be 100% sure when they and every other device under the seat and tank are all covered in the same layer of grey-tan dust that you can't actually clean off no matter what you try.

Part of me does think it could be electrical, bad coils or the like but I'm not actually sure about how I'm supposed to test them. where to put the test leads, what my numbers are supposed to be. I've been scared about working with the coils or spark plug wires ever since the time I accidentally pulled the 90* head off of one of the wires, thought I broke it and was going to have to pay who knows how much for a whole knew coil unit, and was generally thinking of just emptying the whole gas tank into my stomach until the guy who was helping me work on the bike realised I hadn't busted it, they are supposed to come off like that.

Another thing I thought it could have been was a bad gas tank vent, but when I flop the gascap around I can hear the little ball in the vent flopping around inside, so I don't think that's it, though it'd explain why the bike won't just start back up when it dies, since it'd take time for the vacuum in the tank to subside and finally allow fuel into the carbs again so that it could finally catch.

 

When were your valve clearances last checked?
Are you running pods?
Did you just walk to the door and fail at entering Church?

 

Plenty of threads on checking coils - use search. Ditto valve clearances. Post again when you've done both. It's an old bike it needs care and is unlikely to respond to quick fixes. That said check all your electrical connections for fastness and corrosion

 

I'm thinking coils, too. Been there enough times......

But question--when you did the carbs, did you set float levels? At what height? did you do a wet setting for fine adjustment?

 

Agreed, Coils or plug wires.
Test them by either starting at night in a dark place and watch for the light show, or use a spray bottle of water to get them wet while the engine is running. If you see the light show, or she dies, you'll need new coils and wires. Search up the cb750 coil thread.

 

The valve clearances were done may of last year, as documented in http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/xj750-valve-adjustment-requesting-some-eyes.90393/

Then the bike ran like a new and awesome machine for a grand total of like two weeks which brought me to http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/this-bike-hates-me-a-tale-of-hateful-carburetors.92382/

No pods for me, I know better, though I can appreciate that having them must at least make it easier to pull the carburetors out. The space between airbox and engine is pretty tight for maneuvering the carbs in and out.
I understand the importance of church because my well intentioned attempts at circumventing steps that should not have mattered bit me time and time again. I had them off FIVE times last year, mostly fixing what I messed up during the first two removals and culminating in the final replacement of the shaft seals which seemed to be the actual cause of the problems I was experiencing at that point.
When it comes to float levels, that's maybe the one thing that I didn't actually have to do anything about. When taking a clear tube, connecting it to the port at the bottom, cracking the screw for the port, letting it all balance out, I found that my fuel levels were right about where they were supposed to be. They were below the gasket line but not by some crazy margin, and they were all pretty consistent with each other.
I'm hoping that the actual tuning issue I'm experience is just the bike needing to clear itself out, likely with the help of me dumping insane amounts of seafoam and its friends through the fuel system. I'll see what I can find about the electrical system because at this point I'd rather dig into it than the carburetors again.

The fact that last night the bike sitting and idling with a little bit of choke at maybe 2500, and the bike would still go out like a light, as if someone hit the killswitch, does have me thinking that electrical could be the issue. I won't have a lot of time for actually wrenching today and the weekend, so I'll try to read up what I can about the coils and wires, as well as maybe figuring out how to make sure my alternator, stator, all of those bits are doing as they ought to.
CB750 coil thread? I hope you mean http://xjbikes.com/forums/threads/83-xj750-maxim-coil-question.95753/ and http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/cb-750-coils.88468/#post-511252 because I'm having issues finding much else on here regarding them. It's good to know that the Honda coils can be substituted in, especially since they might be easier to find, depending on things.

When it comes to seeing the spark I guess I just have to assume it'll be arcing specifically from wherever the break is, right? Could be anywhere from the spark plug caps to the full surface of the coil units? Same thing probably goes for where I'll need to get the water, though I think that just heavy humidity is enough to upset them given how it was running last night.I'll also try and clean up all of the connections.
I'll get on it and see what I can do.

 

Random thought: what's your fuse boxes situation? Could a bump or shake knock loose a connection in there? Original fuses are known to be a weak spot on xjs.

 

I'm running CB750 coils ... Buy them new Cycle Recycle part 2 has the brand new for 39$ they also gave wires and plug caps . these mount in same location and with same hardware. Picture attached ..should be no interference with tank.

 

It's running the old fuse box, cylindrical glass fuses. I've cleaned up the connections in there in the past, and I'd have thought it could be the problem more but the bike can act all funny even when its sitting still.

The coils are 40 bucks for a pair? Even if it's 40 each that's pretty reasonable if it comes with everything one needs to run it. I didn't have time to delve too deeply yet, was it mentioned that you have to do some work replacing the plugs to connect the honda coils to the yamaha wiring harness?

 

The engine vibrates even when sitting still. The engine vibrates the frame. Fuseboxes vibrate when the frame vibrates.

 

There are a TON of places that could be suspect. We're just highlighting the most likely ones.

You mentioned that humidity causes the most problems, means it is likely the coils. However, because the glass tubes eventually crystallize, that could give you intermittent contact, or allow too much amperage through that circuit, and as such, poses a potential safety problem. I recommend upgrading to the newer blade style. They're cheap, you can get a 6 terminal box from an auto store for $15.

That's a good deal on the coils though. Mine cracked a few years back, I went with Dyna Coils. Quite a bit more pricey, but they have been rock solid.

 

While ignition components are probably a good bet, I'll suggest that upgrading the fuse box will serve you well for a long time. When I did mine, all the lights got brighter and I no longer had intermittent issues. Never a bad thing to do, even if you end up looking after the coils next.

 

I have one more suggestion even though the typical symptoms of this problem do not exactly match what you have going on.
Get a can of electrical contact cleaner, and a can of dry-film silicone spray lubricant. Peel the boot back from the sidestand switch plunger and spray cleaner on the plunger while you work it into the switch by hand. Once she's clean follow up with the lubricant. A sticky sidestand switch will cut the ignition off just as if you had hit the kill switch.

 

I'll definitely look into fuse boxes if it's a cheap thing to do I'll probably just do it, same as the coils.

Just before work I tried to take a quick jaunt around the block to see how it was going to run since the air was a bit less humid. I should have thought more about the fact the bike was till covered in water from the night before. Thing cut off in a rotary, almost got me hit, I fought like hell to get it to start again, It started, died the second I had to let my rpms drop, clutching because I had to change gear, and by that point the battery wasn't going to start it, starter was chugging terribly. Almost got hit again trying to cross the street near the busy rotary, actually dropped the bike because I was so close to getting hit, messed up my dominant hand trying to catch it, and still despite the effort still put a major dent in the tank and snapped the ball end off of the brake lever. I pushed the bike home. I didn't realise that where I live was technically the top of a hill until I was pushing it up it like Sisyphus and his boulder.

Thankfully my neighbor who rides was there when I finally got the bike home, calmed me down because I was shaken from the almost dying bit, furious from the bike not running bit, and completely out of breath from the herculean pushing of the bike up the hill bit.
Him and his friend will thankfully be working with me to get it in running order, they might be able to see more than I can.

Do the coils from the cycle re-cycle site actually come with caps and wires? The one I found that was listed for 39$ didn't mention coming with them. (attached image)
I'll be pulling the plugs to check them out but I'm not sure how much good it'll do me since I know the bike's running funny, and I doubt that the constant starting, dying, fighting to start it and needing to have the choke on and keep it at higher rpms will give me a real accurate result to tell me what the tune is like.

The kickstand safety switch could definitely be a part of it, yes. Anything that can send a kill signal to the engine is up there on my list. I'll see what I can do about cleaning it up and inspecting the kill switch proper. I think that the clutch switch has already been disabled on this bike but if it hasn't I'll add that to my list of suspects. I do know that the kick stand as well as the little rubber booted bit above it do get pretty nasty. bit of oil, some dirt, lovely cakey mic that I'm sure isn't helping anything.

 

Doesn't look like those coils come with wires, and remember, you'll need 2 coils, 4 wires, and 4 caps. I don't know the 750 that well, and aren't sure if the wires or caps are resistor types, fortunately, you can always check out Chacal's catalogue for the specs. Your local auto parts place can source wires and caps for relatively cheap.

Sorry to hear about your hand and frustration at the bike. It is maddening when all you want to do is have a nice healthy bike that runs, however, having done a complete rebuild, and dealt with the subsequent gremlins, the feeling of scooting around on a machine that you brought life back into is extraordinary.

Don't give up. Take a breath, take it slow. Do it right.

 

Try the least expensive thing first. Have you put new spark plug caps on it?

 

From what you are saying I still am not sure if you actually walked through the door and entered Church. Sounds like you say a prayer here and there and go bits and pieces through it. Put on your Sunday best Trenchcoat and be saved son!

Fuel levels "right about where they are supposed to be" again, I feel as if you words are vague yet close enough to being on target that MAYBE your wet set float levels are in spec?

Yes, we should discuss tuning. After your carbs have been to Church (real Church not tv church), there is the bench synch, the wet set, the colortune, the vacuum synch, often followed with a second color/vacuum go round. Then she is truly tuned. You mentioned valve clearances were done last year, in that provided link you also mentioned checking them earlier than the 5k norm. Have you rechecked them?

 

replace the fuse box you can use inline fuse holders as well as the fuse block.
does all the electrical stop or just the ignition?
get one of these holders put some clips on it and put it across the ignition fuse next time it dies( this holder is to large to use as a replacment) if it starts back up you know it is the fuse holder

ohm out the ignition system including the sparkplug caps they unscrew by the way.
trim back the wires 3/8 inch they could be corroded.

do an accurate measure of the fuel levels not just eyeball it

Setting the fuel levels
Fuel Level in float bowls: 3mm +/- 1mm (.118" +/- .039")

arcs can be to other wires or the gas tank or cylinder head

 

Fuel levels:
It's hard for me to remember exactly on the nose where the fuel levels were because it's been a year since I had to do it. Now that I'm up and thinking about it I do think that most of them were right around 4mm from the line you measure from. I remember thinking that the numbers I was getting were on the low side but that they were still in spec. All that I have to do is grab some of the clear line I'm sure I still have kicking around, get the bike on the center stand and jack up the front to level out the carbs again, and I can verify the levels, make sure they haven't dropped for some reason.
Church:
What I meant when I said that the shaft seals were the final thing replaced is that it was the last thing I hadn't done. I've gone through the process of cleaning things, buffing and inspecting the slides, replacing fuel rail o-rings, unbuggering floats and needles and passages, with new gaskets and shaft seals all over the place. I simply didn't do all of it in one sitting, rather it was spread out over I think about a week.
Syncing:
I did a bench sync by lining up the plates with the ports in the throat of the carburetor, I think that Polack was the one that suggested the visual approach, which worked better for me than the card one. I'll be the first to admit I don't have a gunson colortune. They're costly and when I was looking around for them I couldn't find them from a reputable source that wasn't further jacking up the price. Instead I relied on an across-the-board setting for the fuel screws, bringing it from some PO's random settings to all 2.5s, and then up to 3 because it seemed to respond a bit better. I then spent a lot of time with a mini mason jar bottle manometer that I built for the purpose to get the cylinders to agree with one another. I think that my bench sync could have been a bit better since it did take a fair bit of work to make it actually smooth out with the manometer, but in the end the result was smooth and reliable.
Valve clearances:
I still intend to check the valve clearances again before the set interval of 5k, I'm running on an interval of 2.5k instead because of how close some of the measurements were, but I still haven't hit the 2.5k mark yet. As much as I enjoy riding, and I do, I don't actually cover that much distance all that quickly. Fuel costs money and there aren't a lot of spectacular places to ride in my neck of the woods and I'm not quite at the point where I'll ride a long distance alone, though the idea of riding the Kancamagus to the north of me has been in my head for this year, assuming I can get things running again.
It was either going to be about towards the end of this riding season or the beginning of the next that I was set to check them, but I may well be able to check all of that sooner, especially since it'll give me the chance to check the timing chain, I think mine might need a bit of love, I remember being able to hear the chain when I got on the bikes accelerator and it might be in need of tightening or replacement.

I didn't realise that a person can just buy the spark plug caps. Is there anything special I need to know about the caps I'd need for the xj750mk, any kind of specific resistance they're supposed to have? Also, they unscrew from the spark plug cable? The one that fell of last year just came off with a tug, and went back on with a good push. I know that the inside of the cable I could see was lady of liberty green, and it's safe to just chop the corroded bit off?
The little fuse holder with clips seems a bit of genius, I think I can work up something like that to check the ignition fuse. I'll need to remember which of the fuses do which in the fuse box as well.
When the bike dies, it's ONLY THE IGNITION. Engine goes out, but the lights are still on, blinkers still blinking if I had them on at the moment. It just seems to me like all of a sudden the kill switch was flipped, all of a sudden there's no combustion happening in the engine which would happen with no spark. Maybe the fact that the engine's still getting fuel mix dumped into it when the spark goes could be the reason it can take a bit to get it to catch again? I know it tends to smell on the rich side after an episode.

 

The plug caps unscrew from the plug wires. You want 5k Ohm caps for the outer cylinders and 10k Ohm caps for the inner pair (though you can just run with 5k on all).
The original caps have replaceable resistors if you find that the caps themselves are not cracked.

 

And all of that makes my butt vibrate

 

Synch your carbs

 

Alright, so I'm trying to do what I can to clean up connectors and the like and at this point I'm thinking I'm just going to replace everything from the coils to the spark plug caps. My understanding is that I need the two coils, about 6 odd feet of 7mm non-resistive wire, and four caps, likely the ngk caps in 5k. I'm curious about the whole thing about the 10k inner and 5k outer resistance numbers k-moe mentioned because that's the first time I'd heard of it, but in the interest of it being harder for me to mess up I may end up going with 5ks all around.

A thing that the neighbors friend, Jonny said is that since the bike goes out like a light, that it could be the TCI box. Kind of makes sense, and it makes me wonder. It could be that one of the coils is faulty and the other one is just weak since it's 83 vintage after all, but he brought up the point that a bad TCI or CDI would likely be able to kill both coils at once, which would match the symptoms. I assume that these bikes wouldn't be able to run with a single disabled coil, that if one wasn't firing at all because of a fault, arcing, what have you that the bike isn't going to run at all on just two cylinders, but I wanted to just run that by the people who know these bikes in particular. Jonny's one of those older guys who've been wrenching since points were the thing you had to deal with but he's more of an american V-twin guy. I'm trying to figure out everything that you can do with a multimeter to test the coils themselves, but is there anything a person can do to rule out the TCI? It'd kind of suck to spent the 100+ on coils to find out it was the TCI.

 

You can mail the TCI to one of us and we can swap it into a running bike. I've done that before, no charge but postage.

 

Replace the fuse box, clean/dielectric all connections, chop the coil wires 1/4" back, add new plug caps and check the plug gaps. Your bike should start and idle without hesitation.

Gary H.

 

The CB750 Coils ,have replaceable plug wires very good feature .

 

so of all the advice you have been given which have you tried to resolve your problems?

 

I work during the weekends so I haven't been able to do much wrenching. I've got the battery on the charger since I killed it the other day. I'm now in the process of going over all of the connections with contact cleaner, now that I'm back at home I should be able to head over to the neighbors where I have the bike parked and in pieces and I can see about trimming the spark plug cables back a wee bit, cleaning up what I can see on the inside of them, see how it runs. I'll then be walking down to the auto store to do something about fuse box, see what else they have that might help me.
I'm going to be taking the multimeter to the pickups and coils, also a few bits and bobs I found from a xs650 forum I can use to maybe figure out anything useful about the TCI before I make the call to ship it off.
I still plan to check the fuel levels eventually but I'd like to make sure the electrical system is sound before that.

 

So I just got back from ohming the caps. Funny business. The two outer caps showed me about 8.4~ when I had the meter set to 20k and for the inners one was 4.8ish while the OTHER one was something like 15! Now I don't know how much variance is too much variance, but I've got the XJ parts catalog ignition page open and the bit where it says:

But those resistors in the spark plug caps........or in the spark plugs themselves, for those engines that use resistor plugs........do wear out over time. And when they do, their resistance increases, which means that they provide more resistance to the flow of electricity than is needed. So that 20,000 volts of electrical energy, instead of being discharged at the spark plug gap in a rather short (10 milliseconds) amount of time, gets "spread out" over a much longer period of time, and gets reduced in voltage, too. So when plug caps or plugs "go bad", they rarely fail to the point where no spark occurs at all, it's just that the electrical output is being "spread out" over such a long period of time that the energy being created in the spark plug gap is so low that it's not enough to fire the fuel mixture completely (or at all)........and that's what leads to hard starts and poor performance (and reduced gas mileage, too).

it has flags going off in my head since I keep hearing that these bikes can get upwards of 45mph while I don't think I ever touched 35 and I swear I'm no drag racer.

I'll be checking my numbers on the caps again, doing more reading on the caps and trying to find exactly where the leads go on the coil and what my numbers should be.
Interesting story I've personally dealt with concerning former girlfriend who left me for no reason, before she left me her car just stopped wanting to do car things one day more or less after we got stuck out in a storm (whats with humidity and electrical issues???), turns out the spark plugs were TRASHED they were TOAST it was so bad that there was no electrode on pretty much any of them and her family wasn't the kind of person to check plugs on the used car they bought. They were so damn bad that they actually fried the coils. ten dollars in plugs and a 40 dollar junkyard part and it ran just fine.
Now my spark plugs are new, they aren't all that old at all, but I'll be pulling them regardless, but I imagine it was the messed up resistance that fried the coils and the high and mismatched resistance of my bikes caps seems like it could be doing the same thing.

 

Alright, had to stop working on bike because a friend needed help with a project, he's building a drawing table and needed a hand. Before spending all the time between my last post and sundown at his place I managed to get the multimeter on the bike again for a few tests. I was right about the plug caps, even used his meter in addition to mine, had him do it too because I don't want false readings.
1-8.3k
2-16.1k
3-4.8k
4-8.4k
Now what's fun is that when I tested the secondary resistance of the coils, when I measured the left coil responsible for 1 and 4 I got 12.1k or so. within the 11k+- range.
When I measured the right coil which supplies life to the inner pair of 2 and 3, I got 4.88m. Thats an M, megaohms. Just a little bit outside of spec, and I don't think there's really a way to botch that reading with how many times I tried to take it.
I tested both by removing plug caps, jamming probes well into the cables themselves of the pairs that go to each coil, trying to get good connection.
I also tested to see if the TCI was grounding the coil (bad output driver) to check that there is a suitably high resistance. I don't know what number is suitable per se, but the numbers I were getting were definitely not in the handful of ohms or less. More like high kiloohms, low megaohms which I guess what must be appropriate.

Also took the face plate off of the TCI, went looking at the board itself with a flashlight and two pairs of sharp eyes and I couldn't see anything that looked particularly funny, paying attention to coldwelds or the like. My friend spends a lot of time restoring old electronics, has his experience with things breaking down for the kinds of reasons given in the catalog but he couldn't see anything apparent.

 

I think you have found your problem. replace the caps with new NKG aftermarket cap plugs,( I would not replace the internal resistors)
replace the bad coil or the pair.
have you tested the pickup coils yet? so often overlooked.

 

You may multiple gremlins...

I would still replace the fuse box as they often go bad with age. Cost is low, and it is good insurance. It doesn't cost much except a little time and few dollars in parts. I used inline fuse holders because I could get them locally on the Saturday I did the work, but aftermarket fuse boxes are also cheap online and are visually a bit nicer.

Working on my bike, it was a series of improvements in performance as I checked, adjusted or replaced things to bring it back to specs.

 

A series of improvements sounds good to me. When a person is catching up to 1-3 decades worth of overdue maintenance it seems pretty much impossibly onerous, the idea of doing every last thing at once. I find it better to make it a process.

I'll likely be getting rid of the old fuse box once I can find a suitable cheap replacement. It'll be something I'm looking for. There may be multiple issues indeed and I'm still planning on checking more of the electrical system before I just run out and start tossing money. I didn't get the primary resistance measured right, going to hit the pickups too because no reason not to.

 

Primary resistance for the coils was fine even though the secondary was way off for one of them. I ohmed out the pickup coils as well, and they were both returning almost exactly the 650ohms they were supposed to give me.
That part's all well and good, makes me think that the coils are definitely bust. I'd just be replacing both of them, whole system, not worth working with any of the old parts since they're obviously funny after 34 years.

The fun bit's where the neighbors friend Jonny had me turn the bike back on and try to tune the idle. Since I'd at least spent some time really cleaning pretty much every relevant contact through the whole bike he wanted to see this hanging idle issue I've got. Long story short, it does look like there's an air leak.

Now, last year when I did the carburetors I had an air leak, seems it was the cause of my issues and it was fixed with throttle shaft seals. I'd isolated them as the problem by spraying wd40, carb cleaner, what have you at the whole surface of the boots as well as the seals and I only got a change in RPM with the seals. The boots were iffy, they always have been, but they were not leaking at all. Today as I was struggling to get it to idle evenly long enough to spritz the coils with water to demonstrate the stall he went after the carbs and boots with wd40 and lo and behold the thing started acting up. Isolated it to the far left boot, seems like the seal between engine and boot itself is the location of the leak. I covered the whole damn thing with RTV black and tomorrow I'm going to spray the things again with stuff and I'm going to see if it's still leaking. If it's gone then it'll get even more RTV on it, if it's still there I guess I don't have much of a choice but to see if Chacal ever got the aftermarket boots back in stock.
I was going to do boots last year, even asked Chacal for quotes but they just weren't available at the time. From the old post I'd made -

I said it, I called it. Not happy about it. Not happy about any of this.

I'll pop back up once I've been able to make some decisions regarding battle plans. In the meanwhile I'm going to relax and maybe peruse the listed bikes on craigslist. I don't think I actually would, but the fantasy is definitely there.
I really just want to ride after all of this time stuck indoors all winter. It's all I want.

 

A hanging idle is only a problem if you ride places that require idling. So just avoid stop signs, stop lights, your driveway, etc...and you're all set.

 

If the people I share the road with didn't seem to brake check me for the sheer chuckles of it I wouldn't mind it so much. You're also from MA, so I'm sure you know how many rotaries there are around here. I live right off of a rotary even, so the traffic is always a thing unless it's about 4:10am, which is incidentally my favorite time to be on a bike anyway, but yeah, I agree. This hanging idle needs to be dealt with one way or another. The electrical fun-times need to end one way or another if I ever want to be able to get onto the highway riding out of town with any kind of sense of ease in my heart, not having to worry about some kind of breakdown where I've got no way of getting the bike home, or even myself.

I just have a fairly well founded fear of problems that become even bigger ones the moment you scratch at them. "oh, I need to remove the ancient intake boots" becomes "oh, guess I have to figure out how to remove FIVE intake bolts that broke flush" and having to consider the expense vs convenience of just buying a new head at that point. "Oh, I need to replace the coils" becomes "turns out the entirety of the wiring harness is so bad that I'd be better off rewiring every last connection on this hairball of the bike myself". I'm not a lucky person. The best that I can do is soak the daylights out of those bolts starting the second I affirm I do have an intake leak tomorrow until I finally attempt removal with the most potent stuff I can find for it, while worrying about it in the meanwhile since it's a part of my nature, and hoping that all that I do in fact need for the bike electrically is coils and their associated odds and bits.

 

Oh ye of little faith.

You are not unlucky, you are blessed with opportunities to work on your patience whilst being meticulous in refurbishing an older machine.

 

Do you use that same excuse for brakes don't work, either?

 

Well you could move to central VA from MA like I did 6 years ago...where people just drive 35 mph EVERYWHERE... All in all I like it here better, but driving I'd rather be back in MA where people want to get where they are going someday.

 

You do NOT have to get a new head ....get some modeling clay build a dam around broke bolt if is flush , put some alum powder mixed with a little water ....wait about 24 hrs stud will dissolve and you should be good to go. Alum is in spice aisle of grocery store . Any Hobby Lobby or Michaels, Wally world should have modeling clay...

 

Alum powder will eat a steel bolt while ignoring the aluminium head it's stuck in? Now that's a reaction I'm wanting to watch some youtube videos on. If that works, that does put my mind a bit more at ease.
As for moving to VA, I'd really rather be anywhere than here. I'm from Nevada originally and my life is a bizarre testament to what happens when what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas, literally. If I still had family there I'd be there. I had the girlfriend here which is what's kept me around the state I've never really made a home out of, but now that's gone. I've got maybe four good friends keeping me here, otherwise I could be anywhere, but it's just a big question of meh, what places are actually better than the commonwealth of Taxachusetts, where there's nothing common about the wealth if you get my drift.

I actually tend to enjoy having a project to work on usually. When I don't have something to devote my mind towards I fall into a state of ennui I'd rather avoid. The issue in this case is that while I actually find the learning about how bikes work fascinating and putting it into practice somewhat fulfilling, in this case that has to fight with the displeasure I have with it taking time since I don't have any other mode of transportation, effectively putting the rest of my life on hold, while also dealing with the stress of watching the bank account take the impacts of each successive part I have to buy. Perhaps a bit of a rarity of my generation and those younger than me, I tend to hold onto every dollar I can and it's actually quite the process convincing myself to spend the money. It's why I've been testing and retesting everything I'm being told to look at on here before committing to which parts I'm buying.

 

there are you tube videos about it I will be trying it tomorrow.

 

So since I'm pretty much set on buying the new honda coils from cycle re-cycle to replace the old ones, I wanted to ask how I'm supposed to set the wiring up for them. I know about how the yamahas have the grey/orange lead and the red w/white stripe lead soldered onto their posts, which go into the little plastic connectors and then disappear into the enshrouded wiring harness. Meanwhile the honda coils (assuming I'm buying the right ones) have two blade connectors, apparently a + and -. What I need to know is how this translates into whether positive or negative gets the grey/orange or red striped wires. I think I remember reading about how the TCI messes with the ground to fire the coils off, so does that mean that the orange and grey are the signals while the red striped one actually goes to ground, and so should be on the - terminal on the coil, or does it simply not matter because it'll fire off correctly whether signal and ground are going one way or the other?
I sent an email to Chacal asking about the aftermarket intake manifolds since they weren't available last year. Hoping they are this year. Once I know what's in stock I'll be able to really decide what my best option will be for solving my air leak conundrum.

There are a number of videos regarding the whole alum thing and honestly it seems like magic, usually I read about aluminium being the metal that's eaten away to nothing, but it really does put me at ease about the whole intake thing.

 

on the ignition coils there is a red/white and orange pair and a red/white and gray pair polarity is not an issue just make it the same for both coil packs

red/white is the plus 12 side


the transistor in the tci is like the points of an old ignition system
transistor flows voltage to coil (which is a transformer) and when the voltage is cut off
you get a collapse of the field and this results is the spark
I belive it is called hysterisis its been so long from when I needed to know.

 

That makes sense. It's interesting how there are so many ways of all doing the same thing, from magnetos and points to the TCIs and CDIs. Plus distributors, though I'm not 100% on how those work, seem a lot like points to me.

 

A distributor is just a switch that changes which sparkplug gets the voltage. It has nothing to do with making the high voltage, or causing the discharge to happen (though it's typical for the ignition module or points to be inside of the distributor housing).

 

All you do is desolder the old leads off old coils ...crimp on a good quality push on blade connector ...look carefully at old coils there is a marking of + and -

 

Coils are ordered, the ones from the site you recommended that look like the one mounted in the picture you posted. Part of me was wondering if maybe the shape of the underside of the maxim and seca tanks could be different than thus interfere with the fit, but I guess I'll just have to hope they dont and if there is a problem while I'm figuring out how to bang the dents out the top of the tank I might see about banging in some on the bottom to MAKE it fit. Also coming are two 90* and two 120* NGK 5k caps, tried to somewhat match the OEM setup, and 8 feet of 7mm spark cable, all in one delivery. 111$ or so, not too bad at all.
I'm still waiting for news from Chacal regarding the aftermarket intakes as well as trying to read up on what I could do to save the old one that's leaking. Seems to only be the one so I'm reading up on the many attempts people make to rejuvenate and seal up these old rubber parts.

Alright, so the distributor itself seems to do the job the pickups on our bikes do in that case, as well as usually housing the ignition control system, whichever it may be? Put multiple parts together into one, I suppose it saves space and makes replacing that part of the system that much easier. Co-worker fried the distributor on a Honda Prelude because he walked away while his new to him used car had a messed up thermostat, the car overheated and melted the distributor. Seems like every vehicle I'm surrounded by is suffering from electrical issues. Very interesting indeed.