Coil questions

[sargergp]

I'm spending a little time tinkering and tuning while I'm recovering from a knee surgery and discovered something really strange. While testing my coils according to the manual you unplug the primary wires and test the primary first and then then test the secondary. My discovery is that unless I reconnect the primary wires before testing the secondary I get an open circuit reading on the secondary. I've never seen this before on any coil. The two windings should be completely separate from each other. When tested with the primary wires connected I get the proper reading on all secondaries. I talked to a technician at the dealership where I bought it and he thinks I'm right but he is going to call their techline in the morning and get back with me on it.

I'm just wondering if anyone on here has experience with these coils and whether I'm right or not. If I'm right I have some bad coils.

 

OK everyone, here's the latest from the factory rep. The manual doesn't mention that on the Venture the secondary winding of the coil doesn't get it's ground from the coil frame, instead it gets it from the negative terminal which means the primary wires, or at least the negative wire from the harness must be connected to get a proper reading on the secondary winding. I just got the return phone call from the dealership technician. He said he was happy to check on this for me because it would be helpful to him as well.

Edited April 9, 2009 by sargergp
new information

[cowpuc]

Lets see if I can take an educated guess at what you are going to find out,,,,, I have no ego so if I am wrong I will learn something too..

First the Ohm Meter you are using.. Let me guess that you are using a very sensitive digital meter.. The reason I say that is the old analog Simpsons tended to not pick up the eddy currents that this new digital stuff does.. Next I totally agree with your summation that the coil windings between primary and secondary MUST be separated or they cannot function. However,,, the material used to shield the two windings maybe of such that "leakage" (eddys) can be detected with a sensitive meter and this low resistance material is necessary for the modern electronic switching taking place to trigger the secondary coil..

So here is what I would do if I were in your shoes.. I would test the coils on a known running bike and see if its any different then mine.. If not so I would be concerned,,, if they tested the same I would keep packing for that cross country trip I have coming up.....

LOL

'Puc

PS: Hope it all works out for you!!

[GeorgeS]

2nd gen, maint Library, pull up the schematic, on this web site.

 

Lots of good information there

[sargergp]

updated info edited to original post.

[GeorgeS]

See page 8-7 for schematic, 2nd gen

 

See page 8-9 for the Ing Coil Test proceedure.

[sargergp]

See page 8-7 for schematic, 2nd gen

 

See page 8-9 for the Ing Coil Test proceedure.

 

Yes, I have the manual and I printed the test pages for the coils. That is where I was referring to regarding the lack of information about reconnecting the primary wires before testing the secondary. It just says to test the secondary from the ignition wire to the frame of the coil. But as my updated post says, the factory rep says this was a change in the coil for the Venture that was left out of the manual. That's why it confused me.