Mach VIII

Not a good night in the garage last night. [sigh] I checked the choke plungers and they seem to be operating correctly, so that can be ruled out. Connections to the TCI looked good, but I sprayed with contact cleaner regardless. I next disassembled the plug wire caps/boots. Inside I found: threaded brass plug retainer (for lack of a better name), resistor, spring, and small brass disc. The brass disc was missing from #4 . I cleaned up the parts, but struggled to figure out what order to reassemble the parts, as they did not really come out in a clear order. If someone could confirm 1) that those are ALL the parts I should find inside (excepting of course the missing disc on #4 ), and 2) the correct order of reassembly. After some figuring and fiddling, here's what I ended up doing: plug boot -> spring -> disc -> resistor -> brass plug retainer Also, I took the missing disc from #3 and installed it in the cap/boot for #4 just to see if that would get #4 to fire properly. I saw a picture in another post here a few days ago with all the parts laid out and describing the order of reassembly, but after looking for more than an hour, I cannot find it again. Here's the maddening thing - when I check the resistance with my meter, I get no reading whatsoever. I tried assembling the parts multiple ways, but still no resistance reading on my meter. WTH?! I tried doing the secondary resistance test again on the coil by inserting a probe into the (now assembled and attached) plug cap, but again, nothing. I do not understand how my disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly of the plug boots/caps could have done this. I will say that I did use a wire brush to clean off the resistors, but I can't see how that would matter at all. Just out of curiosity, I tried to check the plug boots for continuity with my meter, but still got nothing. But I don't know, maybe the resistor is too much for the little continuity tester in my meter to overcome???? Not knowing what else to do, I figured I would just plug in the TCI and temporarily hook up the battery to try and start it. Well the starter clutch is now making horrible noises at me and will only occasionally spin the motor over at all. The PO told me that he had JUST replaced the starter clutch because it made horrible noises (but again, gave up on making the bike a runner after realizing the carbs would need to come off). In my time of ownership it has occasionally done this, but mostly when the motor otherwise seems "unhappy." For example, it has done this far less since I removed, cleaned, and reinstalled the carbs. Usually if I wait a couple seconds and try again it will engage properly. Not last night. So now I can't even check to see if I have spark. From doing some reading on the subject, my guess is that the 3 bolts on the starter clutch have backed out. Oh joy. It's a good thing I don't live next to a body of water, or this thing might have ended up at the bottom of it last night I was so frustrated.

Thanks for the responses thus far. I have not tried spraying the plug wires with water to look for arcing, but I can do so. I guess I'd need to use jumper cables to the battery (since it and the tray are removed) and maybe set the airbox back in place. The plug wires and end caps are stock items (no idea if stock or replaced at some point). As I say, I inspected both ends of the #4 plug wire and saw no corrosion, but nipped off a 1/4" on either end. When I unscrewed the cap/boot I found a small rod that I guess must be the resistor. It was kind of white in color and I assumed it to be ceramic or something similar. No spring came out, but perhaps it was still inside the end/boot. Would the spring be on the "wire" side of the boot or the "plug" side of the boot (behind the metal piece that actually contacts the top of the spark plug)? As to the "choke" plungers, I believe those are all moving freely now - that was not the case before cleaning of the carbs. I can verify free movement easily enough though since the airbox is off. Again, thanks for the responses thus far.

Hello all, Been a lurker for the last year and I'm finally posting as I need some help and couldn't find the answers I was after in prior posts. I'm afraid my V4 thinks it's only a V-twin! Forgive me that this will be rather long, as I want to give complete information in hopes that will be better able to assist me. Background: I have an '89 VR (Cali model, if it matters) that I bought almost exactly a year ago and have been slowly restoring and returning to road duty on a budget. Approximately 34,000 miles. When I bought the bike it would only run on full choke, and poorly at that. Previous owner bought it that way as a project. He attempted the shotgun cleaning method but that didn't work, then he lost interest. I have no other prior service history, though I can see that a lot of the prior "modifications" were poorly executed, so I have little faith in the competence of the PO (not who I bought it from) to properly repair and maintain the bike. Anyhow, I removed carbs and had a friend who operates an independent bike shop fully clean, rebuild, and bench synch the carbs. I have since installed and also installed new NGK iridium plugs. Running and performance: Bike has been running now for a few months, but not especially well. I have taken it out on a few "shakedown" rides of around 100 miles or so in hopes that riding it around would help it heal after coming out of an unknown period of hibernation. That hasn't fixed it. At start-up it fires right up on full choke but doesn't sound as smooth as I would expect and I hear a periodic popping that I believe to be pre-ignition or some incomplete combustion(???). Riding it it's a bit of a dog at first and I will have to feather the throttle some when I come to a stop (off of choke). It doesn't fall on its face when accelerating, it just doesn't feel as strong as it should. Mileage is horrible - I'm having to get gas after only around 75 miles or so. After riding for quite some distance (more than 15 miles) and especially after really flogging it on a more sustained basis, it seems to run noticeably better, although never 100% (at least I don't think). Still some popping on deceleration and doesn't always want to idle at stops if I let off the throttle. So in my estimation it seems to be running "kinda decent" at these times, though having never ridden one of these, I don't know what a properly running one should feel like. For reference I have owned several V45 Magnas, a ZX-12R (my main bike), and other inline 4's, among others. I have ridden a VMax once, but it was a number of years ago now. My memory of it is pretty limited, but my Venture doesn't feel nearly as powerful as I remember the VMax. My ZX-12R is in another stratosphere, but that's not an apt comparison. Current Symptoms & efforts to diagnose: I've had a suspicion that #4 is not firing, or at least not all the time. I'd previously used a pointable thermometer and saw the temperature (measured pointing at the jug) was significantly lower on #4 as compared to others. Unfortunately, I only ever checked this after starting the bike up in the driveway and riding up and down my street, rather than after an extended ride where it was running "better." I had also previously checked the spark plug in #4 and saw it was wet and likely fouled (cleaned, dried it, and reinstalled since it only had a couple hundred miles on it). This past Sunday I set about to figure out what was wrong, and fix it if I could. I started it up in the driveway on full choke and it fired right up. After letting it idle for a couple minutes I pulled the plug wire off of #4 - no change whatsoever. I stuffed another plug in it while it was still running and I do have spark - I both felt it and touched the plug to the engine and saw spark. I can't really say how strong, as it was in bright daylight, but I could definitely see it. More surprising to me was that I pulled the wire on #3 and had the very same outcome. I then pulled #1 and it immediately started to stumble, so I reinstalled. Didn't bother pulling #2 as it obviously had spark since the bike didn't immediately die when I pulled #1 . Pulled the plugs and inspected. #4 was wet and clearly fouled. Others were ok (not great), with the white ceramics a bit sooty, but not wet like #4 . Weirdly, #3 actually looked the best. Gapped and installed new NGK DPR8EA-9 plugs and crossed my fingers. I also checked the pilot mixture screws and discovered they were set anywhere from 3/4 out to 3 full turns out. I adjusted them all to 2 1/2 turns out as a baseline based upon what I read in other posts. Fired it up and it was no different. Could still pull the plug wires off of #3 & #4 without any effect. I probably should have taken the bike out and really run it before starting all this, but I didn't. Was thinking instead about having to work on a hot engine. Next I did a compression test. 1=190; 2=195; 3=195; 4=175 (eventually). So, #4 was lower and slower to pump up. No idea if/when valve lash has ever been inspected/adjusted. I see that it requires a special tool and shims, neither of which I have. I now suspect this may be at least part of the cause of my problems, but 175 psi still seems like it should be more than enough compression to support combustion. I continued on with checking ignition components, thinking the trouble may lay there. Holy hell what a job to get to the TCI and coils. I checked resistance on the pickup coil at the plug and all tested wires were within spec. I then checked primary resistance on the ignition coils and all 4 were in spec. at 2.9 ohms. I then checked secondary resistance by inserting a probe into plug cap and got the following resistance numbers: 1=22.5; 2=24; 3=22.1; 23.7. At first these numbers alarmed me as they are all much higher than the 15 ohm maximum specified in the service manual, but then I read that the plug cap should be 10 ohms itself +/- 10%, so if I subtract this out, all three coils are in spec for secondary resistance as well. I suppose I could remove the wires from the coils and try to test at the coil directly, but access is limited and I know I'm getting (at least some) spark to all 4 cylinders. Let me say I am not at all excited at the prospect of pulling the upper fairing to change out coils unless it is absolutely necessary. Considering they all test about the same, I'm thinking they're ok, but you guys are the experts on these bikes, not I. Those numbers also lead me to think the wires and ends must be (at least) ok too (I took apart plug wire and end for #4 and everything looked fine (no green corrosion), then I clipped a 1/4" off both ends of the wire and re-assembled). I got the TCI out of its stock location as well. From what I've read these can be the source of all kinds of poor running conditions as they start to fail. It is weird to me that when they fail it is not a complete failure, as that has been my past experience with CDI's. I can't help but wonder if this magic black box is the source of my problems. I did open the cover, but wasn't brave enough to dig out the soldering iron and desolder the pins to the main plugs just so I could look at the top of the motherboard and the diodes that are known to fail. My understanding from reading past posts is that if the TCI is not working properly, there's no fixing it. The diode replacement and resoldering of various connections is only preventative maintenance on properly functioning units. So my thinking was to leave it alone for now, since if it's broke I can't fix it, and if it ain't broke, I might just screw it up with my extremely limited soldering skills. It would certainly be helpful to have a known good one to plug in to rule in/out the TCI as a problem, but alas I do not have one and ones on ebay aren't cheap (for what may be junk anyhow). I've read about the Ignitek computer, but I don't know what my long-terms plans are for the bike and am concerned about budget. Besides, I don't want to just go throwing parts at it - especially expensive ones. I also checked to see if there's fuel getting to all 4 carbs and there is. I opened the drains on each of them and got full bowl's worth from each. So I'm not really sure where to go next with it. Based upon the compression test, I am wondering if valve adjustment should be next, though candidly I was hoping to avoid this job. I welcome suggestions, comments, offers of help, commiseration, jokes at my expense as the FNG, and further questions. I've done a ton of other work on the bike and I'm really anxious to have it finally "done." If I can ever get it running properly, I can turn my attention to the non-functioning cruise control (Grrrrr) and do a final "detailing" of the bike, before planning some longer trips. Thanks all for your patience in reading along, and thanks in advance for your assistance. [P.S. - If I have placed this post in the wrong folder, please feel free to move it and let me know where it should've been in the first place]

I'm the recent purchaser of a blue 89VR project that I am in the process of returning to road duty. I bought it off of Craigslist a couple months back from the Atlanta area and brought it home to Charlotte NC area. I believe it to be a California model based on the charcoal canister on the left side. I'd certainly be interested in knowing more about the history of this particular bike. It is factory two-tone blue that still shows well. There are a number of modifications I have discovered and wonder if it was owned by a forum member. The gentleman I bought it from only had it a few months and got it as a non-running project himself before losing interest. The owner before him appears to have traded another bike for it in 2011 and thereafter only put around 5-6k miles on it. Anyhow, here is the VIN: JYA1UNC05KA005186