GL1100 Cease-fire

[MrUnlucky]

I recently switched to a single-carb setup using the VW Type 1 EMPI 34 PICT-3 carburetor and it ran GREAT for about a week and just suddenly stalled and won't restart.
The housing for the choke was noticably warm, and the bike would only start with the throttle all the way open and then would go from barely starting to revving up like it should to stalling out within about eight seconds. A couple of times it also backfired a cloud up through the carb. It had previously similarly stalled out whenever I took off too fast from full stop, which I'd initially thought was the lack of backpressure from an air filter affecting the vacuum advance (I was on my way to get an adapter for the air cleaner I bought when it died just now). Now I'm thinking that the problem is that I ran a wire from the battery instead of my problematic accessory terminals on my fuse blocks (in the RAINDEAD thread) without realizing that this meant the choke and air-cut-off would be getting 14.5v when running instead of the regulated 12v and that I've cooked the electronics in it.

Is this a possible explanation? I know it's not the rain issue because it ran fine in the rain for the past couple of days, ran fine thismorning, and sat in the sun all day while I was at work. I didn't have the tools on me to pull the spark plugs and confirm spark, I'm going to swap the old carb back in tomorrow morning so I can get the bike home for more thorough check. I know the voltage going to my ignition coils is too high and the resistor's shot, but it's been running fine until today, and before the new carb whenever it misfired it was out the tailpipe.

Basically my two questions are:
Is it normal for the choke to heat up during normal operation?
Can 14v cook the choke and/or air cut-off over the course of a week?

 

[auctioneeral]

I think your talking about the fuel cut off solenoid on side of carb which would have 12 volts to it. If you had it connected directly to battery, that would leave shut off on all the time and draining battery I would think. I hooked my fuel cut off and choke element to the accessory terminals and ran a ground to carb. You should be able to hear that fuel cut solenoid click when you apply 12 volt to it.

 

[slabghost]

Electric choke is supposed to get hot in operation. Expansion is what opens the choke. 14v should not harm the choke at all. It might open a bit sooner though.

 

[joedrum]

i think its ignition ...to much voltage there has cooked it and it in the process of failing right now ..id say its backfire through carb as spark is wondering and off time ..idoubt stock carbs install is going to work at all ...and your taking the chance of blowing the slides apart on them if it backfires while there on

 

[Denver]

Odds are 80%+ that's its electrical, 10%+ fuel & the rest mechanical, when anything won't run. Read somewhere when i was young, :headscratch: & found these numbers to be accurate in my experiences. :yes:

 

[MrUnlucky]

auctioneeral » 16 minutes ago[/url]":1sm3demn]
f you had it connected directly to battery, that would leave shut off on all the time and draining battery I would think.

I had it routed through a kill switch so I could turn it off.

Electric choke is supposed to get hot in operation. Expansion is what opens the choke. 14v should not harm the choke at all. It might open a bit sooner though.

i think its ignition ...to much voltage there has cooked it and it in the process of failing right now ..id say its backfire through carb as spark is wondering and off time ..idoubt stock carbs install is going to work at all ...and your taking the chance of blowing the slides apart on them if it backfires while there on

Thank you, but...that really isn't what I was hoping to hear. That means renting a U-Haul truck to get the bike home and waiting on a resistor and ignition. Rent is going to come one day too soon for me to order the c5 this month, and getting ignition coils and resistor just pushes it back further.

It really was running a LOT better with the new carb, though, all four cylinders idling as low as 1000 rpm without stalling, which makes me want to lean away from ignition failure being the culprit but I'm certain you guys know a lot more about this than I do.
I feel bad for giving the seller a hard time over how long it took to get to me because it was such an improvement.

Well...I do think I'll still try the stock carb tomorrow just in case. Even if it blows apart I have another whole stock carb on the shelf, and if the single carb isn't the problem then I'll just be putting it right back on anyway. Now all I've got to do is figure out how to get an 850lb motorcycle into a U-Haul truck *without* being able to drive it up the ramp.
Assuming nobody steals it tonight :beg:

 

[joedrum]

sheesh i hate that situation for you.....and i could be wrong ...inow that it bacfired the single could be leaking air also now so it may be carb ,,,especially if its one of the manifolds that hook up to stock intake horns

 

[MrUnlucky]

joedrum » 6 minutes ago[/url]":3uctuzqn]
sheesh i hate that situation for you.....and i could be wrong ...inow that it bacfired the single could be leaking air also now so it may be carb ,,,especially if its one of the manifolds that hook up to stock intake horns

It does use the stock intake boots, yes. I did make sure to tighten all the hose clamps on the rubber boots and put brand new o-rings in all four intake and the horns were a rather tight fit onto the manifold. The failure was so sudden, though, and the bike was warmed up by the time it stalled out.

It hasn't had an air cleaner on it (stock no longer fit, of course, and the collar I bought along with the air cleaner turned out to be too large for the top of the carb) but I have been keeping it covered since it's been fairly wet weather lately. Part of me wants to think maybe the carb float is sticking, but when it did start up momentarily it revved up to 4000rpm or so before falling off again, and it was running at a steady speed of about 35 when it initially stalled out so that's not really consistent with a carb float.

You guys are probably right about the ignition. As stated, I already know that the resistor isn't resisting and the coils are getting the full 12v, and I already knew that one of the coils was significantly weaker than the other. It was just doing so much better with the new carb that I was hoping it would last until the C5, but that's going to get pushed back until christmas now that I've got to miss work tomorrow and rent a U-Haul. Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to find ignition coils at one of the local bike shops or the one motorcycle salvage place nearby (they have a pretty bad rep and ever since he offered to weld my stripped Engine Sprocket onto the crankshaft of my KZ440 because he didn't have the replacement part I kinda don't trust him).

One other question:
The files that I read about testing the resistor for the ignition coils said it was supposed to be 3 ohms and that you can get a stand-in at an auto parts store, but that file was for GL1000. Should the GL1100 resistor also be 3 ohms or is it different?

 

[joedrum]

go to hondaman .com hes got the best stuff there and info in to the point products he has

 

[slabghost]

I'd go to your junk yard and get a set of coils to try of an 80's 4 cylinder bike. If that works ride it until you get the c5. If not you'll need a downhill run to get that bugger up the U Haul ramp or some help pushing.

 

[MrUnlucky]

joedrum » Today, 7:58 pm[/url]"now that it bacfired the single could be leaking air also now

It wasn't a BANG btw, it was more of a poof. When I leaned over to look into the carburetor intake it just kind of coughed smoke at me. More of a Goofy moment than an Elmer Fudd moment, I seriously doubt it had enough force to blow anything apart.

I'd go to your junk yard and get a set of coils to try of an 80's 4 cylinder bike.

Wait...ANY 80's 4 cylinder? I kind of figured it would need to be off a Honda.
That would greatly increase my chance of finding a stand-in part at the junkyard if they're interchangable like that. I assume mounting hardware probably varies, but that's a minor detail really.

 

[slabghost]

They really are pretty much the same. All use the hall effect electronic ignitions so coils should interchange pretty well. I just grabbed a pair of coils for my old kz and installed them. I've no idea what they came off of. That was 5 years ago and it still runs.

 

[Dusterdude]

True dat

 

[MrUnlucky]

Coils replaced at junkyard.
Started right up.
You guys are awesome.

 

[slabghost]

Good to know you've saved some cash and revived your ride.

 

[MrUnlucky]

MORE FUN WITH ELECTRONICS

So I went and ordered a resistor from an auto parts store. They couldn't tell me how many ohms it would be, so I just picked one. Turned out to be 1.6 ohms, which is better than nothing right? So I hooked it up in place of the old resistor and lo and behold...still 12.5v.
Checking the line side of the resistor, it was getting 14.4v. The 1100 is supposed to be around 8-9v at the coils, right? I may just pick up a second resistor.

But this morning my turn signals didn't work and my ignition was sluggish again so I decided to finally swap the wiring connections from the '83 wiring harness that was in it to the '82 wiring harness I'd bought (I'd been putting it off because I wanted to see about getting a proper plug put on my stator wires instead of wire-nutting it like it was). She started up with no problems this afternoon. A couple of the connections to the console and lights aren't matching up, but that can be easily overcome.

Then I noticed that one of the components, a little black box stamped OKI electronics MPS-350 1003 was still hooked in to the old harness, but the bike was running fine. After close examination, there doesn't even seem to be a plug to connect this to the '82 harness. Then I remembered that this was an ignition control module, one of the parts I'd bought and swapped out, but even though it's not connected the bike is running fine.

 

[joedrum]

this bike sounds like mine it always has me going in circles with the old wiring

 

[slabghost]

As long as it is running fine ride it and save for the next parts!

 

[MrUnlucky]

So immediately after making that post I made a quick trip to the grocery store. Everything was fine on the way there, but on the way back I was in slo-mo again. Extremely sluggish from take-off, wanting to stall if I accelerated too hard. Just like this morning before I swapped the wiring harness. Just like before I swapped the ignition coils. But this afternoon and on the way to the grocery store everything was fine.

I left out a bit about the ride home from work, though. The ICM was actually the second module I'd noticed wasn't plugged in, and the reason that I noticed it was because I'd also forgotten to plug in the Regulator/Rectifier. I stopped for gas on the way home and when I went to start again I had absolutely no power in the battery. She push-started right up (lucky I was on a hill) and I assumed it was because of one of the wires I hadn't yet swapped over. When I got home, I checked the voltage on the battery to be 8.6. I thought I could just run a hot wire from the fuse block to the battery until I found the correct wire, but noticed the fuse block had 8.5v. Rechecking the battery I saw 8.4, it was gradually falling but the bike was running fine. That was when I noticed that the Regulator was plugged in to the wrong wiring harness. Plugging it in returned everything to 12.4v and I let it idle to charge the battery while I tried to get the headlight, brake light, and turn signals in order.

So I'm wondering if it may have actually been the lower system voltage that caused the improvement and moments of high rev are causing ignition problems with the Regulator connected / after the battery finished charging. I thought maybe I could unplug the Regulator again tomorrow morning for the drive to work, or just re-feed the line side of the ballast resistor from the 12v accessory screw on the fuse panel instead of the 14v hot that it currently has. That should take it down to around 10v (probably need to swap in a bigger fuse for this). Maybe I'll just wait for it to act up again and unplug the Regulator to see if it improves.

If it's not voltage related, then at this point the only remaining piece of the ignition system that hasn't been replaced yet is the vacuum advance. I do have a replacement part already, but I've been putting it off because it's hard to get to. I was going to do it this past weekend as a "just in case" but she seemed to be doing so much better after the coil replacement that I put it off again. Also because the C5 apparently won't make use of it anyway (unless I misunderstood him). I already have my '77 GL1000 cams.