86 venture bad tci?? Have tried everything else!

[silversurfer]

i just got this venture cuple weeks ago, 86 1300cc, sat basicly outside since 03. it was under an awning

 

i cleaned the carbs top to botom very very well. replaced carburator diaphrams

 

WHen i got the bike it turned over slowly, i know not a good sign, i sprayed pb blaster in there and turned it over and put oil in there and now it seems to turn over fine

 

THe bike would start when i got it but would only run for about 10 seconds and only with choke fully on, one of the sparkplugs appears to be burning clean and three of them are always wet

 

i dont think compression is a problem as it seems to be 150 plus on each cylinder

 

I HAVE spark, pretty decent spark on every plug , i just pulled my cdi off the bike just to take a look at it, o yea she has 84000 miles, on her, its just hard for me to think TCI when the spark is so good but i have tried everything else that i know off any help would be greatly appreciated really wanna get this thing up and running

[skydoc_17]

Hey Chris,

Welcome to the VR.ORG Site! Now, lets talk about that bike! You said good spark to all 4 cylinders. You said 1 plug dry 3 plugs wet. Well, since the TCI controls the spark, it sounds like the TCI is doing it's job. Gasoline ONLY burns if it is a vapor, if it is a liquid, (wet plugs) then the Carbs. are flooding the combustion chambers. You said you cleaned the Carbs., did you remove them? Did you take them apart? There are passage ways inside these Carbs. that a human hair would barely go thru. It sounds like you have gummed up Carbs, and at least one fouled plug, most likely three. I would first try a fresh set of plugs, and an ounce or two of Seafoam per gallon of gas in the tank. Is there fresh gas in the tank? If not, drain all of the old fuel out. Then add fresh gas, with the Seafoam in it. Don't go crazy with the Seafoam! There are directions on the can. Try to get the bike to run for a while so it will come up to operating temp. then ease off on the choke. There is more than one fuel path inside these Carbs., so increasing the throttle, (Rev the engine) will get the treated fuel into the different areas. As the Seafoam works thru the Carbs. it should run better. If not, then the Carb. rack will need to be removed and the Carbs. disassembled and cleaned. This is a common problem with these bikes when they sit for a long time. You didn't mention your mechanical ability, so I would try the Seafoam trick first. It can be purchased at Advance Auto, Sometimes Wal Mart has it. White can, red letters. A pint is around $8.00. Go to the First Gen. Tech Section, (Click "Forum" Icon, upper left on home page) and down load the Service Manual for the MKII (1986 to 1993 VR) Find the Idle knob, (Left side of bike) and try to get the bike to idle at 1000 RPMs with the choke off and the bike warmed up. If you want to PM me for some other ideas, that's OK too. I have attached a pic of the Idle Adjust Knob. Good luck with this project,

Earl:thumbsup2:

Edited January 6, 2011 by skydoc_17
added pic!

[Venturous Randy]

Skydoc gave some great advice and one thing I will add is these sparkplug caps have resistors in them and they do corrode, so either take them apart and clean them, or replace them. Also, cut off a 1/4 inch or so off the plug wire. These bikes sitting for a long time is a lot worse than running the heck out of them everyday.

RandyA

[timgray]

Going nuts with seafoam wont hurt things. To avoid carb rebuilds on a buddy's bike that sat since 1984 I ran 100% sea-foam into the carbs after I got the bike kind of running. 10 minutes later it sputterd to life with all the pipes heating up. I burned a whole can of straight seafoam through that before we switched to 1 gallon of gas with 1 can of seafoam in it. after running a lot better we shut it down and let it set for 2 days with the high concentration of seafoam in the carbs. it ran perfectly on the next startup.

 

It's not a miracle product, but it is safe to use "going nuts" with it.

 

That said, I was being lazy and did not want to tear apart the three carbs and then have to readjust everything.

[camos]

Going nuts with seafoam wont hurt things.

 

It's not a miracle product, but it is safe to use "going nuts" with it.

 

[silversurfer]

thanks for all the feedback it is greatly appreciated

 

ok to start with yes i cleaned the carburators by removing them, what did you think i just sprayed the outside of them with carb cleaner lol, im just messes with u but yea i cleaned them very very well, i took off that little removable piece inside the carb that had the 2 screws, then sprayed everyhole under that piece with parts cleaner with a straw, removed everyjet inside that piece and made sure everyhole was clean, had to put those rubber pieces back inside carb exactly where they were when i took them apart, ide probly say it took me about 6 hours just to clean the carbs, i was very much taking my time, i didnt replace that little gasket but i was careful not to rip it on any of the carburators, not my first motor cycle carbs that i have cleaned...

 

well its nice to hear that noone really thinks its the tci, it really does seem like a fuel or something

 

I even shut the lights off in the garage one day to look for sparks arcing out, i didnt make it to the parts store last night to buy more plugs since i know its a possibility that it is the plugs but last night i did take them all out and switched the good plug and heated up all the rest on the oven and cleaned them, i had already tried to check the spark plug caps to make sure they werent grounding out and didnt notice anything but it wouldnt hurt to check again, but im about to throw on a cuple layers of cloths and go out there and start messes with it,

i did leave the old gas in the tank since it appeared nearly empty, i added about a gallon of fresh when i got it, that seafoam is something to think about, thanks for all the advice! ill let everyone know what the problem was

Edited January 6, 2011 by silversurfer

[silversurfer]

well it wasnt the spark plugs but there is one thing that i may have over looked on the carburators, that other diaphram that has two screws holding it in, i shouldhave opened it up and checked in there shouldnt i have, is that something important i prob just figured it was for the choke

[silversurfer]

i pulled the carb again, i think it was those gaskets i didnt replace in the carbs under the main jet, im off to yami now fingers crossed hopefully they have 3 more in stock as i already have 1

[silversurfer]

these yamahas can really throw you for a loop sometimes, im starting to wonder if my new autozone battery is just such a piece of crap that its not putting out hot enough spark, i took off the spark plug caps and put the wire straight to the plug, whats weird is its weak looking when i hold it at a distance to the plug(thats in the cylinder) but very strong looking when i let it jump to the engine itself, weird huh

[friesman]

I am NOT an expert on anything mechanical, but i think I have read in here that if your battery is weak, you may not get enough spark intensity to run the bike correctly. maybe try with another known good battery and see what happens.

 

 

I am sure someone else who knows more than I will chime in here in a bit.

 

Brian

[gscbertrand]

I have had plugs that would only fire correctly if I held them away from a ground. New plugs are cheap and you will know it's not them. New caps are a good idea as resistance builds over time. Resistance is also building in me over time but that's another thing. Good luck!

[Dmnordin]

One thing you might try is to blow out the carb passages with compressed air when cleaning the carbs. I've had car carbs in the past that didn't work correctly until I did this.

 

Doug

[silversurfer]

ill get one soon, since i have the main jet perfectly clear and i sprayed carb cleaner in everysingle hole i would think i would be ok enough to at least run it

[silversurfer]

this bike is really kicking my ass, i have been going at it for a cuple days now, after i cleaned the carbs i waited on the diaphrams to come in the mail as i thought that was the problem, i even disconected the kickstand and cut the black and white wire that goes to the 6 pin on the tci cuz it was grounded , Are those intake boots capable of warping this bad, no light shines through, im leaving for the library to pick up the book if anyone thinks of anything please let me know, are there independent screens in the carb? i thought i read that sumewhere

[silversurfer]

yall were right, i know it, i just got back from autozone with some a spray can of b12, some seafoam, and i also stopped at harber freight and got that blow gun attachment that ive been needing, well you know the saying, fourth times the charm....

[friesman]

be careful with the ether, its pretty hard on a gas engine, i understand its dry and has no lubricating properties.

 

 

Brian

[mbrood]

From my experience, if you are getting spark and she won't start or idle it's a problem with the TINY idle jet inside the fuel bowl in the jet block... easily plugged... and the idle mixture screw accessed from the outside just below the diaphragm cover. Typically these are 2 14 to 2 1/2 turns OUT from a lightly seated setting... but all bike cylinders are different and these may darned well need a bit of tweek. If you consistantly get wet plugs on a certain cylinder, I would ease THAT idle mixture jet IN just a bit... and I would do it with her running if possible... if she picks up rpm (it takes a few seconds) then you are on the right track. As was said, it's all down to compression, spark and mixture... you have the first two so now it's down to the final steps... I've fought a bit to get my overhauled carbs back to a nice idle but it's there to be found.

 

(A high accuracy (many digits) tachometer is real helpful n setting the idle mixture screw setting! Four cylinders mask a lot of misadjustment.)

[silversurfer]

IT WAS CLOGGED PILOT JETS!! im a dumass i know i said i did a good job on the carbs the first time but i guess i kinda lied, i didnt clean the pilot jets, just sprayed em, at the time the girlfriend was over and she had me kinda in a rush, really though theres no excuse, but i figured it out my self mbrood u were just a little to late lol but hey u nailed cuz thats what it was

 

so the bike starts up instantly now with no ether and runs untill i shut it off, the only problem now is that it seems like it is on 3 cylinders,(i know better than to run it like this for any length of time) but when i do the plug pull test to see which cylinder doesnt affect engine it appears they are all equal...(they seem to occasionaly backfire equally as well, it will run all day now but it really sounds like one cylinder is pretty far off, i checked 3 out of 4 of those little tiny diaphrams and they were good, hopefully my prob isnt the one i didnt check, i was too late to get new plugs but i did have a new one laying around threw that in didnt help,

 

WILL THE TEMP SENSOR AFFECT TIMING OR ANYTHING LIKE A CAR CUZ I HAVE IT DISCONNECTED RIGHT NOW?

 

i dunno at least now i am alot closer to figuring out what is going on, when it is running all the plungers go up like they are supposed to, the carbs are very very clean, so what gives?

[RandyR]

you may be just a little carb sync away from success...?

 

assuming it isn't a weak spark for one of the previously mentioned reasons.

[silversurfer]

i did a quick sync when the carbs were off before i put them back on the bike. the engine is actually revving higher than it should, prob at around 3000, i attributed that to them needing to be synced but i assumed it should still be on all 4 cylinders since i know im not that far off on the syncing and i also revved the motor and its not like another cylinder kicked in, hey anythings possible though, if i wudda made it to parts store for plugs i was also gonna grab sum spark plug caps but that didnt happen so i dunno im prob gonna go look at it now and see if anything catches my eye, im sooooooo close

[silversurfer]

and check some connection on them,im thinkin it has sumthin to do with spark being just a little too weak

[Venturous Randy]

, at the time the girlfriend was over and she had me kinda in a rush, really though theres no excuse,

?

 

 

When you are dealing with a girlfriend, there are somethings you just don't want to rush on but I had not considered it relating to carbs.

Ok, when you are saying revving to 3,000 rpm's, are you meaning idleing at that rpm? Also, syncing before putting the carbs back on the bike is a very rough way of getting them close so they can be synced properly. But, if you are ideling at 3,000 rpm's, you will need to get it down to 800 to 1,000 to properly sync. When you start the bike cold, let it run for 30 seconds or so and then feel if there is a difference in the exhaust pipes. Don't run too long or they will be too hot to touch.

RandyA

[dingy]

and check some connection on them,im thinkin it has sumthin to do with spark being just a little too weak

 

 

Where are you located at in Ohio ?

 

Gary

[silversurfer]

Hey just so everyone know i really do appreciate all the advice

 

I am in seven hills ohio to be exact.

 

yea i kno they have to be synced on the bike thats what i was saying, i remember i had a kz550 that started running like crap and i believe it was cuz a hose was off for the pcv it had sum kina pump on it that put it in the valve cover but ANYWAYS

 

JUst a cuple ideas of what may be wrong, im goin out in the garage in the next 5 min to check on them

 

1. i dont have the air vent hose attached to any of the carburetors, i could try blocking them off, i know thats an airvent cuz i just got the service manual yesterday from the library, it could have more info in it but still helps out when ur trying to figure things out.

 

2. i dont have my airbox on or all those pcv hoses(kinda unlikely problem)

 

2;. possible i need new spark plugs.:

 

i pulled off 2 spark plug wires at the coil last night and to my suprise they did not appear to be corroded

 

with all the technology on this bike were is the check engine light lol, i mean its got that boost sensor checked connection on that already, i mean its possible sumthin puttin a slight drain on spark, my black and white wire going to tci on 6 pin is a ground and from what i was reading its not supposed to be but im gonna leave it alone till sumone tells me further, well off to tinkerland

Edited January 8, 2011 by silversurfer

[friesman]

put the airbox on and close it up, these things run like crap with out them. Check in the forums area under first Generations and you can find a manual to download in there. I would hook up the hoses just in case one is a vacuum source.

 

Brian