General wiring connections issue on my 85 XJ700

Once last fall, my i went to start my bike, and all it would do is spin over. I had only had the bike for about 3 months, so i had no idea what i was getting into. I quickly traced it down to a slightly corroded ignition fuse. I cleaned all the fuses as best i could, and all was good until yesterday, when the same thing happened. I did the same thing, except this time i had to wiggle the wires going into the instrument cluster to make it start. Today at work i got ready to leave when it happened again. I had to take off the instrument cluster, check all the fuse connections, and finally traced it back to a harness connection in the area of the TCI box. All i did was unplug the connector several times and tried to get the pins back shiny again. Any help for these issues would be appreciated. Are there aftermarket harnesses and fuse blocks out there?

thanks guys.

 

I'd go through all the connections with some sort of abrasive and clean as many of the contacts as you can. Follow that up with some good electrical connector cleaner, and last but not least, get some dilectric (sp) grease and put it on all the connections. I had a similar problem with my one maxim x, and then I did what I described above and that (knock on wood) was the end of any electrical gremlin.

 

Yeah, that's sorta what i was thinking too. Just go through all the harness connctions with some abrasive and follow up with some noalox or something. Thanks for the reply.

 

I purchased an AirEraser from Pasche. Bit pricy but a good price for a small media blaster. Cleans contacts OH so nicely (if you use baking soda, the clean up is a breeze). Pack with dielectric grease and you are golden.

 

That's exactly the line i was thinking. We use a couple of bead blasters at work, and i was thinking that would be perfect for getting into those connectors. Thanks a million!!!

 

OK, so the plot thickens. I have gone through checking my connections, not all of them, but the ones dealing with my ignition circuits. And although i will say that they still need some tlc, at least i am getting power now.

But........

It wont fire. Getting 12v to the coils, resistance of the coils and pickup coils is good, i think i got a bad sidestand relay, but i sorta worked around it, and i am getting 12v to my tci. My suspiscion is that my tci is bad. Any way to check this out? Does yamaha still make these for the '85's? Aftermarket sources?

The schematic for the sidestand relay shows it as a normally open relay. The check procedure for it in the manual indicated it to be normally closed. Does the black and white wire that goes to the SS relay and also parallels over to the neutral switch, need to be grounded for the thing to start?
Not that it should matter since the thing is in neutral anyway and should fire regardless of the SS relay's state.

Thanks guys, sorry if that was longwinded.........

 

mess with that side stand relay. That little sucker is at the heart of so many issues with spark I can't even count them. Pull a plug, leave it grounded and play with that relay. I finally got mine to behave after hitting it with a bunch of dilectric grease.

 

Will do. But i cant figure out if that is the problem, then why i couldnt get it bypassed. At any rate, i havent been able to get it back going after 2-3 days of the bike going from cranking instantly to not cranking at all. That's the only reason i am thinking it isnt the TCI, but it could be a coincidence that the TCI crashed in the midst of all this other junk. I'll tinker with the relay today. Thanks for the tip!!!

 

Is the Sidestand relay supposed to be normally open, or normally closed? I am getting 0 ohms at both the energized and non-energized conditions. But since the bike is in neutral, i really cant see where this switch could even be a factor.

 

If it does turn out to be the TCI...

Have a look at this.

 

Thanks a lot for that Maximumx. I'll bid on that one if i need it or not, lol. I havent even called Yamaha yet to see if they still make this one or not or even how much it is if they do make it. I saw a great post on here on how to take one of these apart and replace transistors too. Whatever it takes i need this baby up and going to save some gas!!

thanks!!

 

Trey... Even if a Yamaha dealer can find one for you I hope you have some healthy kids to sell or trade for it or a hot GF in a town full of lonely millionaires. New ones are not cheep! If you have the opportunity to aquire one as a spare I highly recommend it. As we all know, there's nothing worse than waiting for a hard-to-find part when the sun is shining... :wink:

I read that post about repairing the TCI, but I'll only tackle that when I absolutely have to! I am electrically challenged...

 

lol....yeah, i aint crackin that open till i got no other options. Last CDI i got for a suzuki was years ago and it was 200 bucks. i wound up throwing it and the bike in the scrap pile after many a f'n kick with no crank!

 

Well, just for kicks and grins, i called my dealer and the part is discontinued, and even if it were still available, it was like $460, so it might as well be discontinued, lol.....

If i cant get this problem fixed, i'm going to have to cut the box open.

 

I thought my tci was bad once, ok, twice. a long 2 month story short, it turned out that my main ground came undone. Bike would crank, but with no spark. Easiest way to test your tci is to find another 85/86 maxim and put it in there. A regualr xj700 tci will work as I found out when my maxim x I am riding right now came with one.

 

That's great to hear, i've been so focused on getting 12v to all these places, and havent even been checking my ground connections!! Will jump right on that this afternoon!

thanks.

btw......that's one hell of a town name you got there, mcrwt644....... never heard of one that long!! hahaha

 

Don't replace the TCI with a factory one, get a Dyna ignition system for $120 and you'll be set. At least that is what we did with Suzuki GS's of this era.

 

OK, so next question, suppose the CDI Fairy comes over tonight and leaves a new one under my pillow. I'm wondering about the strange behavior of my bike the last 2-3 days that it was running, when i had to jiggle wires to get it to start.... IS there something I should worry about in my system that could blow out a new box? Last thing i want to do is replace a box only to find out that it got blow too.

 

Now it won't even turn over. Taking it all apart. Anyone know how to troubleshoot the safety relay? My schematic shows about 6 wires that go to it, mine appears to have about ten on it.

 

OK, so i came home and went to work on it. What started out with a no spark issue decayed into a situation where my starter wouldnt even turn over. Finally found a blown fuse (i know, what idiot couldnt find a blown fuse) but i know it wasn't blown to start with, and it had a tiny hairline crack in it. So....... plug in a new one (ignition), and it blows as soon as i hit the key. Turns out i got a dead short on the CDI from the 12v to the ground tang (checked this with the box totally unplugged).

I'm an electrician, (thank god) but that didnt help a whole lot.

Question is..... can anyone give me one good reason this box could possibly be good before i try to cut the cover open on it?

Thanks a million in advance.

trey