Vickersguy

What Numbers ? Oh yeah, these numbers.. U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Politics aside, the numbers don't lie. Reminds me of a cute little story. The office OMB asked for bids to fix a hole in the White House fence and got two bids. One bid was from a contractor in West Virginia, the other was from Chicago. The West Virginia guy pulled out a pad of paper and a measuring tape, worked out the bid with materials and labor. OMB guy says "what you got ?" $7000, he says. $3000 for me, $3000 for my crew, and $1000 for materials. The Chicago guy paid no attention. The OMB guy says, "Well ? You didn't do any figuring that I could see. Do you have a bid ?" "Sure"', says the Chicago guy, " $27,000 . " How do you figure that ?" says the OMB guy. $10,000 for me, $10,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Virginia to fix the fence.

Got the ignition system installed and went for a ride. Much better. I need to dial in the mixture for perfection. Got home and found the right front brake caliper leaked all over the place.... It's always sumpin..

I'll go to my parts box tomorrow and see if I have one.

Thank you ! This is the information I needed. There were quite a few older threads about refining the ign. curve. I didn't know if that had been sorted out.

I dunno, the price difference is huge, Carmo is $366 and the Igniteck is $150. Whadya do to get the ignition dialed in on the Yamaha using the Igniteck ? The thought of figuring out the advance curves and then loading them into the ignition system is, to say the least, daunting. I'd hate to have a limp wrist-ed advance curve rather than a match to factory original. All the talk I've heard about CD's required to load the curve and so forth is really off-putting. Is there anyone on the board here who has the correct curves ? I dunno...

Hey there "40 ! The Vacuum sensor is the difference, you are right. I just spent some time going over the wire diagrams. Some last minute checking needed, but hear me out on this. A late model 84 to 90 boost sensor is only $5.88 on Pinwall/E-bay. As far as I can tell, that is the only difference on the Mk-1 Ventures ignition system. ( Also the location of the vacuum port ) Even the position of the wires on the plugs to the box seems the same. Only the colors changed, not their locations on the plugs. Therefore, I can use any box I wish as long as I use the correct boost sensor. The only way that won't work is if the pickup coils in the case are somehow wire different internally, inside the coils. I need to check the ohms resistance on the earlier coils to the late coils in the manual. I have a Ignition Box off an '86. That bike didn't run worth a damn either. It had ignition problems too. I just opened up the '86 box and it has the same suspect blue/white diodes as well. I think I'll swap out the diodes and get the $5 boost sensor and see it that will work. My riding season is about shot anyway so what's to loose ? So I order the new black box if it won't work. I changed my mind. I think I'll buy this box from the Netherlands instead of Igniteck. Yamaha XVZ1200 Venture Royal igniter ignition module CDI TCI Box TID14-17, 26H-10 [CARI-YA-XVZ1200-VENTURE-ROYAL-TID14-17-26H-10 XVZ1200 CDI] - €349,00 : Carmo Electronics, The place for parts or electronics for your Motorbike Quad Scooter Car or Jetski

Original type, tin coated solid copper stranded, 19 strands. OEM style. Resistor caps and plugs. I've done everything practical that can be done. I have 9 coils here and I find the probability they are ALL bad, vanishingly small. Ohmed out the entire ignition electrical system to be sure i have full voltage to the coils and the box. Checked all the safety switches and so forth. Re-soldered ALL the connections in the box to cover for cold solder joints. Cleaned all the connectors. etc.etc. My understanding is that the big 4 transistors switch off the ground path for the low voltage side of the coils. This causes the spark when the low voltage field collapses. If, in fact, there is some other pathway to ground, of relatively high resistance, there might be only a partial collapse of the field, resulting in a reduced energy spark. That's my theory, anyway. There may be some other diode on the board "leaking" or it's something else entirely. Don't know. I'm thinking an aftermarket TCI may be the only way out. Can't afford one right now. At the rate I'm going, the new tires I put on it will age out before I get this on the road. Me too. I'll be 70 next month. After all the noise I heard over the ignitek box, I'm thinking this one might be the one I get. https://www.cdireplacement.com/cdi-products/yamaha-xvz1200-venture-royal-igniter-tid14-17-26h-10-cdi-replacement/

Changed out the diodes, good news is I didn't kill the box. Bad news, it's no better...

Also, re-soldering the board will be done thoroughly. To quote the Virago guys... Galvanic Corrosion The space between unsealed connectors contains oil, moisture, fingerprints, dirt, ...etc. Also, being open to the world's contaminates, these things can seep and leach into the micro voids between the connector surfaces. Enter "Galvanic corrosion", where ionic interchange between disimilar metals acts like a corrosive battery, producing compounds that can interfere with good current flow, even making it act like a semiconductor diode. A good place for dielectric grease. Inter metallic corrosion Many brass and copper connectors are tin plated, and the fine border between those two dissimilar metals is closed to the outside elements. However, a strange long-term migration and intermixing of those metals occurs in that thin layer, leading to a form of inter metallic corrosion, which can also interfere with good current flow. Same can occur at the boundary of a substrate and a layer of solder, which can include boundary cracking of the solder. These types of degradation take many years to form, not an issue within normal life expectancy of typical vehicles. But, becomes real after 30 years or more. We studied this back in the 80's, as part of determining the MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) of various electronics products. These pictures represent similar biopsy-like micro cross-sections of tin plated copper-clad printed circuit boards. What all this means, is that with the age of our bikes, electrical problems can occur which defy normal diagnostic expectations. For example, you could have a failed wire connector which still shows appropriate voltage, but won't deliver current to a device, like a light bulb. This was my experience three years ago with a failed turn signal bulb. The contact at the bulb base showed voltage, but the bulb wouldn't light up. Maddening. Traced it to inter metallic corrosion within the contact face. Cleaned up the face and re-tinned it, works fine...

So the bike runs like garbage. Marcal feels it's the carbs and I agree with him. The spark still sucks, however. In Post #28 back up the page I posted a picture of some bad blue/white diodes that were badly degraded next to my beautiful as-new looking diodes. I read in a virago post on another board that even the good looking ones can be bad. I picked the easiest diode to pull for a check and wadya know ! I had hoped they were good because they looked good. I'm going to change them all.

First thing first, I remounted the TCI on the air box. I'm going to do some checks there on the way to the carbs, Just to be sure, So back to the wispy red spark thread........

Such an Historical rush !! Thank you for taking the time to share this !

Have 9 coils total here, all check out good, swapped some out with no change in operation. New wires of the correct type, new plug caps with 5K resistance, new plugs of the correct type, only fair spark, nothing great. I'm agreeing with you. Must be something about the carbs I missed. At least I can skip pulling the motor, for now....

Thanks for reminding me to hold the throttle plate open. Forgot ! New readings, 172, 174, 177, 180. Good news. Except now I have no clue why this bike runs so poorly.

Well, this is where I ended up. When I got the Venture, it would only run with the choke on. That is a classic. Dirty carbs ! Not an issue ! So I bought it. Took it to my garage and did the carbs. The instrument panel didn't work either, and I got that all repaired. Greased the speedometer cable. Got the class system on line. Did new stainless brake lines, rebuilt the calipers and installed new pads. Fixed the sensor issue in the rear master cylinder. Did two valve adjustments when I found the bad data in the original owners manual. New tires were purchased and installed, final drive lube changed along with the engine oil and new filter. ( Have to do the clutch and front brake master cylinders yet ). Something was not right. There was no power and sometimes it seemed to drop a cylinder. Hard to tell which one... Changed out the plug wires, plugs and did a coil check. They were fine. I dipped into the TCI to be sure it was 100%. Changed out a bad capacitor but got no improvement. But it ran rich, so I redid the carbs, reset the float levels Installed and balanced them AGAIN. Still ran rich. Turned the pilot screws in by 1/8 turns to lean it out. Then it started running slightly leaner, but also lost power. It also became almost impossible to start. Finally, the #2 cylinder stopped working at all. Spent several hours just staring at the thing. What had I missed ? You gotta have spark and I proved that was good. Gotta have fuel and I got that 100%. That leaves air. I never checked the compression. It never occurred to me, that just because the bike starts and runs, that it might be bad. How could it be bad ??? I just put 40 miserable miles on it and it ran like garbage, but it ran ! Well, that is what the problem has been all along and I never spotted it. I got 92, 98, and 102 PSI. ( Should have 170 ) Didn't even bother to check the fourth cylinder. If I ever want to run this bike I have to do a valve job and might as well do the 2nd. gear issue at the same time. I don't know. It's a big job. It will cost about $800. I'm an older man and have other stuff to do. I'm 70 next month and by the time I finish this I may lose another year of riding. I just lost this year. I was ready to go May 1st. this year. I spent the entire summer's free time wrenching. I am really sick of working on this bike and now I have a HUGE job to do. She looks purdy but I think she wants to kill me.....

That is a classy dream ride, enjoy !

So I started out like all of us, at 2 1/2 turns out on the pilot jet screws after the carb rebuild. First plug check was black and soot covered on all 4 plugs. Went on the process of leaning out the pilot jet in steps. Went to 2 turns and #2 cyl. was close to good, the rest unchanged, still sooty. To cut to the chase, down to 1.1/4, 1 1/2, 1/3/4, and 2. The sooting is almost gone but the new issue is that the bike is now almost impossible to start. Have to get the choke just right or it cranks forever. No power below 4000 rpm, #2 plug is wet and smells of gas. Once it starts the idle seems OK. It has barely acceptable power over 4000 rpm but not the power I hear folks describe. I'm beginning to think that possibly the pilot screws were over tightened at some point. Are the symptoms I'm dealing with consistent with this kind of damage ? In my mind, I'm thinking that at hi vacuum, the fuel flow would be adequate but as the throttle valves open and the vacuum drops, the fuel flow would be starved, or maybe I have that backwards. Anyway, I suspect #2 cylinder is not firing at idle because the right hand exhaust is significantly warmer feeling than the left exhaust. I'm going to give the bike a run tomorrow and do another carb/plug check after the new adjustments. If this isn't sorted out I will tear down the carbs and clean them AGAIN. It would seem though that this won't fix the issue. Those carbs are clean. If it remains screwed up I suspect it is damaged pilot valve seats. Anyone else chase this issue down ? Is what I'm seeing consistent with damaged pilot jet seats ?

Wow ! A rally I could actually get to !!! I wana go !!??

How about this ? https://www.ebay.com/itm/175646334146?epid=1323047448&hash=item28e5565cc2:g:eO0AAOSwuLBjM8m1

https://www.ebay.com/itm/131688978041?hash=item1ea9465679:g:1VgAAOSwuela34Zi The part is available used. Best i could do you you.

The rear master cylinder is junk. Your profile indicates you have an '83. Very few 86 fork parts will fit on your '83.

To defend myself, only slightly, three years ago before I abandoned the bike in the back of the garage I used a color-tune to set the pilot screws. I had some confusion because I could get a blue color across a wide range of turns on the pilot screws, roughly 2 to 4 turns. I guessed roughly three turns, more or less, and had inconclusive results. Honestly, I don't remember going back and fine tuning the pilot screws afterwards. I lost my notes as to where I set them and in the process of redoing the valves and prepping the bike for use, and trying to sort out multiple issues, the pilot screws were overlooked. Their mal-adjustment came back with a bang when I first took the bike out last week. You cannot troubleshoot a bad ignition system if your carbs foul two cylinders in only 12 miles. Tomorrow I will check to see if the adjustments I made tonight have helped. The reason I put the bike up is that not only did it run poorly but the top end was making weird screechy sounds. Really loud and it sounded like something was really off. When I checked the valves this year, the valves were just like I set them and I was looking at the manual checking the conversion from mm to inches, when I spotted that the exhaust valve clearances in the manual were tighter than the intake valves. Really ? Sound right to you ? I will point out again as I did in another thread, THE VALVE CLEARANCES IN THE '83 YAMAHA FACTORY MANUAL ARE IN FACT REVERSED. Anyway, when you are going through a troubleshooting process you must eliminate variables. Messing with multiple widgets at once just muddies the water. The bike runs like garbage. The only sane thing to do is to go back to the beginning and do the check list from square one. Don't skip steps or jump to conclusions. I would go on about adjusting carbs but there must be 100 threads here about adjusting carbs and it would be totally redundant. In the meanwhile I will discuss my deep wisdom on the subject of bleeding brake systems....

Ahh... it was #4 carb and I noticed when the bike started pulling towards the right... As this is a TECH forum, I thought I might share a special electrical trick I discovered... If you have no room left in your breaker panel in your garage or if you are sad because your air compressor or welder keeps tripping the breaker, here's how to fix it at almost no cost what so ever !!!! TA DA !!!

Note to SELF... A properly tightened main jet looks exactly the same as one gently finger tight, that unscrews and falls to the bottom of the float bowl to jam the float.