How do the tips stay in position? (PICS)

[Sicarii]

So I was riding my bike yesterday up to a relative's house.  It makes it 33 miles only to die about 200 yards from their house.  It was running along absolutely perfect, and then:  BLAM BLAM BLAM!  3 backfires and it totally dies.  I coast it off the side of the road, check the gas...  plenty of gas.  When I try to start it again, it just cranks and then backfires.  Well  picked it up with my truck and drove it home.  I had been noticing that the ignition points had been making a whirring noise lately, so I thought I would try there.  I took off the cover, and I could actually spin the interior ring all the way around with practically no resistance.  So that would explain why the engine died...  I took out the bolt that holds the interior ring on, (the bolt was quite loose, I could take it out with my fingers) and took out the ring.  Okay, now  I can see what that ring mates to and I am assuming the slots are supposed to line up.  But isn't there supposed to be, for lack of a better term, a "male connection" in there?  Mine currently has two slots, but it seems like there should be a post or something on one to mate with the slot in the other.  Any suggestions?



A slot here should mate with...



Another slot?

[Wrecent_Wryder]

Yes, there is supposed to be a pin in there. I know it's not intuitive that a round pin would fit in a slot, but that's what they do.

It's part #5 in this diagram. Are you sure it didn't drop behind the sensor plate? You should be able to tap it back into it's hole, the rotor and rotor bolt hold it in place.

[Sicarii]

Thanks for the reply Wrecent.  Your info was enough to help me fix it already .  Just in case it happens to anyone else, here's what I did.  The pin was totally missing, I wasn't able to find it anywhere.  So I had to fabricate a new pin.  I found an allen wrench that fit in the slot perfectly.  The nubs on it were just a little too wide to fit in the hole in the second picture, so I took my dremel with a polish wheel and smoothed them down until it slid in.  Then I cut off the length that was neccessary, popped it in, and screwed everything back together.  One push and the bike started up good as ever and purrs like a kitten.  (A really angry kitten through a yosh pipe).  It has caused me to wonder, however:  Why on earth did Suzuki design this part this way?  Why doesn't one side have a post and the other a slot so there is not some tiny little pin to get broken or lost?   It seems like it would be a more positive connection if they did it that way... 

[dgyver]

It is a 3mm dowel pin. I do not recall the exact length but 6mm is about right.

I had a pin come loose in a crank due to the hole getting enlarge. I had to carefull add a little weld to make the hole small enough so the pin would be a press fit. I did need to gring a little for the pin to fit.

The slot & pin design is probably due to ease of manufacturing and inherent fit tolerance concerns in mass production.

[Wrecent_Wryder]

Yeah, I don't really know, but I think dgyver is probably right, just a cost/ease of manufacture thing.

The pin fitting in a slot is... less than elegant. Bob Broussard makes his rotors with a drilled hole for the pin rather than a slot.

Might want to order a pin with your next parts order, just in case... it's less than a dollar.