Ok first time poster here with over-my-head problems.
I bought a 94 GS from a guy who had to move out of state quickly and knew it didn't run when I bought it. He SAID he had it traced down to the ignitor over a year ago and the bike sat as job/wife/kids kept him busy.
To keep this short, I'll just summarize.
Bought bike, brought it home.
New battery, bike turns over. No spark.
Call both local Suzuki places, neither has the 'ignitor testor'. Argh. Buy ignitor online (cross fingers).
Install ignitor, bike fires up. Run poorly. Pull tank, clean, reinstall with fresh gas and run it a bit. Same.
Pull carbs, left carb (as sitting on bike) looks nice, right carb has clogged jet and an immoveable needle/seat. Clean clean clean, reassemble. Excited to have bike running correctly since this is OBVIOUSLY the problem as bike sat.
Bzzzzt, wrong.
Bike runs THE SAME. Poorly. Scratch head.
Get Infra-Red pyrometer out and hit the exhaust pipe right out of the head and the left side says 550 and the right side says 120. FRAK.
No spark on right side. This would explain the running poorly. Bike came with a spare coil, I put in on the right side, still no fire. Pull right side engine case cover and signal generator looks VERY clean.
My multimeter got fried a few weeks ago so I'll borrow a buddies to do some testing on the coils and such.
Anything obvious that I am missing or any suggestions? Anyone seen this exact thing and can get me to the end of the movie quicker?
I ordered a manual from this site and bought parts from a recommended vendor and so far so good. If nobody has anything, I'll keep going the testing route, but I thought maybe someone could help.
THANKS IN ADVANCE! :)
Cheers,
Costas
Air-fuel-spark. Is the right side plug wet? If so, no spark. If it's not wet then your carbs aren't delivering fuel.
Thanks :)
Got air, got fuel, no sparkie.
Pulled plug, grounded the side and cranked, no fire. :cry:
Are coils common failure (I swapped it with a spare, but without a working multimeter, I'm not sure if either is ok)? Can a signal generator fail and
lose only ONE side?
Back to the book and more testing tomorrow, but if anyone has thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
thanks,
Costas
The connectors in the wire harness are common to corrode. Make sure they are clean and I normally apply some electrical grease to them. Also, check to make sure the signal generator pick-ups and rotor are secure. Look for signs the rotor has hit one of the pick-ups.
It is rare the coils go bad. Swap left and right coils to see if the problem moves. Check the plug wires to make sure they are screwed into the coils. May need to cut off about 1/4-1/2" of the wire to get a good connection.
Install new plugs.
Thanks for the ideas, I'll start checking.
Will swap L and R coils and test.
Signal Generator is secure and rotor and pickups both look good.
Any clues where to start looking for corrosion of the connectors in the harness? Any certain connector? At junctions?
Swapping known good coil (L) for the R and then my next diag is the signal generator since it has a L and R side....
Is the FORWARD pickup on the signal generator the L or the R bank? Any clue? It's not in the clymer manual that I've found.
Huge thanks so far folks!
Costas
All of the connectors from the signal generator to the ignitor to the coils, especially the ones at the ignitor.
IIRC... the forward pickup is the right cylinder.
Aight, finally got some more time to play with the GS.
Swapped coils, still only runs on the LEFT bank.
Pulled signal generator cover and the rear pickup (dgyver was right, fwd pickup = right bank) and it was all clean, but had
.025 clearance for rear pickup (the working bank) and .005 for front pickup (non working bank).
I loosened the screws and worked the front pickup forward a bit to increase clearance, still no fire.
All clean, no corrosion.
Do signal generators fail on these? Can an ignitor be bad out-of-the-box? I'll trace the wiring and make sure I've got no
breaks or chafes....this is a bit frustrating.
Thanks for any and all help.
Costas
My righy cylinder stopped firing also a while back. On my ride the battery hose slipped off and dripped onto the wiring connections on the left side of the bike. All looked well until I physicaly disconnected the wiring connections to find one of them full of green fluff/powder, aka corrosion. Cleaned it up and I was good to go.
X-Ray,
Thanks for the tip, I've now traced the whole wiring harness as best I can and it looks good.
All connectors are in pretty good shape.
Anyone with Signal Generator experience? Can one side just die?
Huge thanks to the GStwin community for the help so far!
Costas
**more info**
Finally borrowed my buddies ohm meter and tested the pickups themselves.
With the KEY OFF and the rotor NOT CLOSE to the pickups:
REAR PICKUP (which is left bank, which works), resistance is .29 when set on 20k scale.
FRONT PICKUP (dead right bank) resistance is 2.01 when set on 20k scale.
Now the Clymer states that I've got to use the Suzuki Pocket Tester, otherwise the values
of resistance readings will differ. Soooo....with no direct correllation, I'm not sure if my values
are their values.
HOWEVER, with one having TEN TIMES the resistance of the other, I'm thinking this is it. In
the Clymer table, the accepted resistance values are 250-420. Nearly twice the resistance, but
nowhere near 10x.
The signal generator is 115$ and it looks like one is in my near future.
Any thoughts?
Costas
***SMACKS HEAD***
Argh. I'm smarter than this, I just wasn't thinking.
UNPLUG the ignitor from the pickups and the values changed. Duh.
Rear pickup = 350 ohms
Front pickup = open
yup...
Costas
I have several signal generators, if interested. All should be good but I will verify their resistance.
I'm VERY interested...would love to get this thing up and running. Price? How soon can you ship?
paul5costas5@gmail5.com
take out the 5s :)
Thanks,
Costas
email sent
Bump. (for a response - what's the latest?)
Whew...
FINALLY today got a chance to put the used signal generator on the bike. Had a family wedding before Thanksgiving, and then Thanksgiving itself and a house full of folks.
But today was NICE out (I'm in San Antonio) and I stopped the motor swap I'm doing for a friend and put in the signal generator and VOILA! She runs on BOTH jugs!!! A little smokey at first, but it trailed off quick and after an around the block ride I was smiling. I then slapped in the new F&R brake pads (fronts were DONE, rears were 10% at best) and then went for a drive and filled up the tank. The carbs are still a bit wonky as it does not return to idle consistently. Sometimes it does pretty quick, others it will hang a bit after I've closed the throttle.
I'm very happy and it was fun to ride a street bike again (it's been years...and years). I've got some car stuff to finish up, but I'll be tweaking on the little GS from time to time and throwing a leg over her when I can.
HUGE THANKS for all the help!!
Cheers,
Costas
I would suggest balancing the carbs and checking your valve clearances. I had similar issues with idle and doing the maintenance is easy, and may very well need to be done since the bike has been sitting for so long, and you're not sure of what kind of maintenance the PO did.
Rylon
Good idea Rylon, thanks!
I'll have a motorswap + rewire done here shortly then I'll dork with the GS again. I'm pulling the carbs again and doing a thorough cleaning and will adjust the valves. Once running, I'll balance the carbs (only have 1 vac gauge....hopefully can borrow another) and see how it turns out.
Huge thanks from everyone so far!
Cheers,
Costas
Easiest way to balance carbs, and from what I hear the most accurate way, is using the $5 carb balencer. There are several desctiptions all over this site but here is a post I made not too long ago http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=44303.msg496871#msg496871 (http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=44303.msg496871#msg496871)
I have pics that can go along with the write up, that I've been meaning to do, but lets face facts I'm lazy!
Rylon