No tough posts lately... UNTIL NOW!!! VOLTAGE UPDATES!!! LOOK AGAIN :mad:

[Kerry]

I could have worded my last reply a little more completely. 

It sounds like the ground wire itself is good, and that the connection made from it to the [oil pan / back of the motor] is mechanically sound, but there's one more electrical resistance test you should perform on it.

With the ohmmeter set to 2K (or even the lowest setting)

* Touch one probe to the "-" terminal of the battery
* Touch the other probe to a piece of bare metal on (or connected to) the frame.
   (Something

besides the ground wire or its connections.)[/list]

If you get a close-to-zero reading, you now know that there is a complete electrical path all the way from the battery to the rest of the bike.

*****

It seems to me that, if the ground wire were not connected properly, most of the electrical parts on the bike would not work AT ALL.  But I to Srinath's experience when he asks you to check the "auxiliary ground". 

*****

[KYGS500E]

ok... lemme update everyone on my progress (if you want to call it that)

Electrical:

- tested the continuity in the coil (primary winding  = 4.5 ohms secondary = 18100) all good
-put another coil on the bike (had a few laying around) and no change
-tested the voltage on my battery not running (11.9 volts) (i'm not really sure if thats ok or not)

fuel:
-I didn't do the exhaust and paper test... however... I DID put the carbs from my 99 gs (running perfect) on the bike  and there was no change there as well.
- I dont have a petcock to go bad... accept for the primary petcock in the thank... the previous owner used a "T" and joined the two lines and capped off the vacume line on the carb.  (could this do it?  I dont think so cause it ran fine like that when i bought it)


Mechanical:  HEre's one for ya... a while back (when the problem first began) the left side plugs would occasionally be bent closed... i haven't seen this problem for  a while.... just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this?

Questions: 

1.  How do I check for 12 volts at the coil?  What settings on the multimeter and what wires to touch... what position to have the key in, etc.

[KYGS500E]

OK.... i think i tested for 12v at the coils correctly.... but i'm not sure...

I plugged the black wire into the "COM" hole (sounds kinda funny) and the red wire into the "V" hole. 

Then I set it to 200 under the "V" side with a straight and dotted line over it (not a squigly line over it).

I DID NOT, however, get 12... I got like 4.5-5.5 on the left and 3.5-5.5 on the right...


I have no idea what this means... but if it is correct (and the motor was idling around 1000-1000 cause thats all I could get it to do) I dont have 12 volts.... I tried with teh bike off and tested both sides but I got "0" readings.

Whatcha guys think???

P.S.- lets revisit the beginnning of the problem.. what happened when all this started...

1.  WAY too much oil and a clanging, clanking, ticking soudn began (at this point it ran well... just leaked oil a bunch... that is after i got the right amount of oil in it.... it ran after the bad oil episode)
2.  bent the valves after redoing the seals
2.2 - left the bike sit outside all winder being covered part of the time!
3.  rebuilt the head (seals and valves) but did not lap the valves or use that mody bdemun (however you spell it) paste
4.  Bike ran but developed a slowly increasingly frequency of fouled left plugs
5.  replaced everything knownw to man
6.  somewhere along the line it increased to no firing at all on the left cylinder

jsut thought a recap of the roots of the issue might help us track it down.

[John Bates]

OK.... i think i tested for 12v at the coils correctly.... but i'm not sure...

I plugged the black wire into the "COM" hole (sounds kinda funny) and the red wire into the "V" hole. 

Then I set it to 200 under the "V" side with a straight and dotted line over it (not a squigly line over it).

I DID NOT, however, get 12... I got like 4.5-5.5 on the left and 3.5-5.5 on the right...


I have no idea what this means... but if it is correct (and the motor was idling around 1000-1000 cause thats all I could get it to do) I dont have 12 volts.... I tried with teh bike off and tested both sides but I got "0" readings.

Whatcha guys think???

5V is way to low for this reading.

Your meter setup sounds OK except you should use a lower range setting.  Try the lowest setting that is higher than 12V, like 15 or 25 or 50.  The 200 setting may not give you a real accurate reading at low voltages.

With the engine running you should get a little more than 12V, more like 13.5V to 15.5V.

With the engine off,  put the transmission in neutral and engine stop switch in the ON position, then turn the ignition on.  You should get something less than 12V because the charging system is not on and the lights are on. The voltage should be around 11V for a good fully charged battery.

[KYGS500E]

if it is lower... like what I got... what would that indicate?

[John Bates]

if it is lower... like what I got... what would that indicate?

You got a problem!

That voltage should be essentially the same as the battery voltage.

If you want to check voltages:

Starting with the Orange-White wire at the ignition coils and going up stream toward the battery:

Orange-White to the engine stop switch
Orange-Blue from the engine stop switch to the side stand relay
Orange from the side stand relay to the ignition switch
Red from the ignition switch to the 20A fuse

all these points should read the same voltage as the battery.

[KYGS500E]

.

[KYGS500E]

ok... so i retested the coils.... i tested them wrong last time: 

This time I put the positive probe to the orange/white wire (disconnected from teh bike) and placed the black one to a grounded piece of metal (handlebars) and I got 10.8.  I dont think this is too bad cause the battery is only charged to 11.3.

The last time i tested I placed the black probe to the ground wire (black wire) that also feeds into the coil and i got 4.5-5.5 While it was connected to the coil and the bike was running.

Anyone think this means anything other than its not a poor voltage issue?

[KYGS500E]

OK... I ALSO did kerry's test for the ground (ohm meter to the frame and negative battery terminal) and it appears that the range that i get of resistance when doing this test is 8.9 - 3.3

[John Bates]

OK... I ALSO did kerry's test for the ground (ohm meter to the frame and negative battery terminal) and it appears that the range that i get of resistance when doing this test is 8.9 - 3.3

I get 0.5 ohms.

Check the connections at both ends of the big black wire coming off the (-) negative battery post.

[KYGS500E]

is that at 2K setting?

[John Bates]

is that at 2K setting?

My meter has automatic range setting.

If your's is manual, set on it's lowest range. Probably 1 ohm, maybe 5.

[werase643]

0.3-0.8 ohm is what you should get for continuity
the handlebars are a bad source of ground(they kinda touch the frame...through grease....check to the frame or engine bolt

[Egaeus]

I'm sorry if I missed it, but how did you cap off the vacuum line that goes from the left carburetor to the petcock?

[KYGS500E]

I have a piece of fuel tubing that has a cap placed in teh end opposite the carb

   carb  =========>  cap w/ zip tie

kinda like that

[Egaeus]

Okay, I was just making sure it was capped off.  That would be funny if it was caused by a vacuum leak.  Not that I'm insinuating anything, but even the best of us have taken apart our fuel system trying to figure out why our engine won't run when we've simply run out of gas.

[KYGS500E]

lol.... yeah... would be funny... funny enough to make me cry  lol