VFR Guru help needed ASAP.....I'm about to give up hope

By the way. ECU and CDI mean totally different things.


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Well....I tested resistance on my rectifier and it was good. Anyone know how to test the ignition coils? I've done the spark test and they all spark. But the fact that my earth ground was loose bothers me. This stuff really came to a head when I went around a tight right turn....the earth ground is on the right side.....so it makes sense that maybe I cooked something from it not being grounded. Oddly no wires are burned etc. Would it cook a cdi.....the coils themselves, or the ecu? Again this came on gradually over the course of a couple months

 

Colloquially they are used interchangeably.

 

Yes you should worry about this--unfortunately when the ground circuit gets interrupted during operation, the current in a coil can punch thru the insulation to find and make a path back home. It can be hideous.

All of the ignition components are now primary suspects--the plugs, the wires, the coils, the CDI box, plus the stator coils, wires and RR are secondary suspects since they may have been a party to the open ground also.

Are those blinker mods using LeDs? Are the current limiting resistors sized properly? If not they can melt and smoke...

 

Well, as I said there is no evidence of burning upon visual inspection of all the circuits. Are you saying it would be a good idea to get all new coils and CDI box? The rectifier passed the resistance test, so its likely that and the stator survived. I could pick up coils and caps and a CDI box from ebay off a low mileage bike i suppose for less than $100

 

Going back to the original post, I haven't seen any mention of the pulse generators, did I miss this or are they not used on this year model? I had trouble with these on my '84 ... just to add to the confusion hwell: ...

ACE

 

i would recommend to inspect, check and verify that all the components mentioned are electrically functional and okay. The factory service manual procedures as a minimum, additional insulation measurement and testing if available. They can't be verified to be good by just looking at them--must be tested and measured as appropriate.

Or it may be ea$ier to just replace all these with known-to-be-good items. So you could try to troubleshoot and repair, or just replace stuff until it's fixed. i prefer the former to prevent blowing new parts when the bad old part is still on the bike and it takes out the new piece.

i would inspect, clean and verify that all the ground connection points on frame and engine, etc. are clean (corrosion and carbon-free) and tight, i.e. that you have a low-resistance ground path. Actually the same is true for the positive connections and path also, remove the battery and wring out the wiring harness end-to-end if it is suspect.

Good Luck and hope you get it sorted out.

 

I hate when the best solution is hours of tedious electrical testing lol.

 

@kennybobby, I notice you're in the same location as I :biggrin: ...

ACE

 

The ATL? How you likin this hot a** muggy weather..lol

 

HOLY CHRIST ON A CRACKER......:grief:

We finally have a diagnosis (I think)! IGNITION PULSE GENERATOR

So I did what you guys and my local bike shop told me to do. Which was either A: Pay them for a billion hours of diagnostic time and MAYBE find the issue....or B: get out my meter and PDF manual and start from scratch testing continuity and voltage everywhere the manual tells me.

I chose B and I think it payed off. I tested all the coils from contact points, then contact to spark points..all passed. Unplugged ICM and started testing the harness like the manual told me...everything passed until the ignition pulse generator. It passed on measurement one, but on measurement two it showed 304 ohms when it was supposed to be 450-550. So that was first red flag. All other ignition points passed the test.

Then I went down to the actual pulse generator harness...which was let me tell you the biggest whore ever, due to the fact that my bike is completely custom and instead of a nice neat Honda harness with clean connectors i had to unwrap about a football field of electrical tape i had put around that whole area to keep it "clean looking". Lesson learned...I will make some sort of metal panel cover or something this time to cover those connectors instead of the tape and chrome bracket thingy I've been using. ANYWAY.....on to the testing ...again down here.....one of the two circuits had proper continuity, the other has ZILCH and i mean zilch. From what Ive read, if you fry both of these at the same time...your bike straight up shuts down...lol. Glad I was able to limp it home.

So Im super glad I figured all this out but im pissed because guess what i did last year......yeah new racing clutch and plates, AND gasket..which i will now have to remove again like a jackwad to fix this problem. Also guess what i did not 4 days ago....brand new oil and filter.....which i need some sort of clever way of saving...im not pissing away $25 worth of oil!

 

<cough cough> Ahem, let me point out post #26 <cough cough> :heh: ...

ACE

 

Huntsvegas, AL here ... luvin it, especially the pop up storms all week long :frusty: ...

ACE

 

Is this a common thing for VFR's?

 

Electrical problems? Yes sometimes. Some people get lucky and never have any. Some people (me) Experience a lot of them.


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I think my electrical problems are exaggerated because after my first stator and rr fail at in 2010 with 25,000 miles on it (mine is a 2007) I listened to the wrong people. I put dielectric grease in every connection (except the ecu, thank god).

I have since had about every single one of those connections fail. (The main fuse, the ignition key switch to harness connection, the big 20 pin blue connection). But my stator to rr connection failed on its own before I even put dielectric grease in it. Which probably shortened the life of the rr and stator.

Also reasons I think why I've had so many electrical problems is because my bike didn't live in a garage and saw a lot of high rpm use(high stator output)





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I meant more specifically with the pulse generator, but yeah.....I attribute most of my electrical problems to the fact that I completely messed with the factory harness locations....its now almost all under my airbox and I have all sorts of wire splices etc etc going on. Guess thats what happens when you want to customize things.

 

Honestly I'm not entirely sure on what the difference is between an electrical pulse generator and a stator is. I haven't heard of any electrical pulse generator failures, but I have heard of a million stator failures.


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On my '84 VF700, the 'pulse generators' feed the CDI boxes. The generators live under the clutch cover on the RH side of the engine, the CDI boxes live under the tail section. As the clutch starting 'wheel' (for lack of a better term) spins, it's passing under the 2 pulse generators and creating 'pulses' for the CDI boxes. The CDI boxes feed the coils. When one of mine went bad, I lost cylinders. My VF stopped running in '08 due to carb issues, with ~ 50K miles on her. During those 50K miles, I had trouble with the pulse generators only once ... maybe a good thing as BikeBandit now lists these generators for my '84 as 'unavailable to ship' ...

ACE

 

With respect to other electrical issues as they pertain to my '07, I've left well enough alone unless something really required attention. She's got ~26K on her, and has the VFRness as well as a Shorai LiFePo battery. If/when I have to fix the stator or the r/r, I'll use an OEM stator & the r/r noted by CRRC46, an OEM mosfet unit.

ACE