nwvtskiboy
Strewn about the garage
1983 XS400 Maxim DOHC
In my journey to get this bike running, I discovered that one spark plug was not firing, so I started exploring possible causes. The plugs and high voltage wires seem to be ok, so I then went to the connector on the ignition controller to see if the coils showed up from there. They both showed resistance so then I went to the other connector and checked where the pickup coil comes in. I get about 110 ohms from one pickup (black wire to orange), and absolutely nothing from the other (black to gray). If I leave my meter connected while I hand turn the engine, the resistance changes briefly when the rotor passes the first (orange) pickup, but the second one (gray) is totally unresponsive. I would think they should be behaving the same. I'm going to drain the oil and take a good look at the pickups themselves and check more connections and maybe actually look at the service manual tomorrow, but I'm hoping that maybe its just a bad wire. Wires are easy to replace, 30 year old pickup coils not so much.
In the case that its not just a wire and the pick up is faulty, is it possible to repair or rebuild one? Or should I start looking for replacements now. I'm wary of buying a replacement due to the possibility of having the same problem.
In my journey to get this bike running, I discovered that one spark plug was not firing, so I started exploring possible causes. The plugs and high voltage wires seem to be ok, so I then went to the connector on the ignition controller to see if the coils showed up from there. They both showed resistance so then I went to the other connector and checked where the pickup coil comes in. I get about 110 ohms from one pickup (black wire to orange), and absolutely nothing from the other (black to gray). If I leave my meter connected while I hand turn the engine, the resistance changes briefly when the rotor passes the first (orange) pickup, but the second one (gray) is totally unresponsive. I would think they should be behaving the same. I'm going to drain the oil and take a good look at the pickups themselves and check more connections and maybe actually look at the service manual tomorrow, but I'm hoping that maybe its just a bad wire. Wires are easy to replace, 30 year old pickup coils not so much.
In the case that its not just a wire and the pick up is faulty, is it possible to repair or rebuild one? Or should I start looking for replacements now. I'm wary of buying a replacement due to the possibility of having the same problem.
