RAINDEAD

[Denver]

Electrical gremlins are the worst, :roll: sadly never have had a really good grasp on them, :blush: only enough to guess right on occasion. :hihihi:

 

[slabghost]

Got a community of gremlins on that bike. Sounds like Joe's Hooch a few years ago. I'd start first with the ignition switch. Clean it up and make all the connections nice. Grease with dielectric grease. Then do the same for the kill switch. Never use the start mode on chargers unless the battery is already toast. Sure way to kill a good battery. For trials like this jumper the car battery to the bike car NOT running.

 

[joedrum]

ok it seems only thing not switched is key hot to coils ....ballast resistor connection ..the wire has to split to go to both coils ..ballast resistor gets really hot and wires there can be compromise there .....head light not working indicates starter button is not working good and this ca also be kill switch wiring or switch not doing good .....sheesh hang in there this is a monster for sure ....electrics is not a strong point of mine but ive had similar battles .... ut yours sounds worse maybe someone else has got something for you to think on

 

[MrUnlucky]

joedrum » 26 minutes ago[/url]":8bd7x8w1]
ok it seems only thing not switched is key hot to coils ....ballast resistor connection ..the wire has to split to go to both coils ..ballast resistor gets really hot and wires there can be compromise there .....head light not working indicates starter button is not working good and this ca also be kill switch wiring or switch not doing good .....sheesh hang in there this is a monster for sure ....electrics is not a strong point of mine but ive had similar battles .... ut yours sounds worse maybe someone else has got something for you to think on

The good news is that I already have an entire wiring harness ordered from last week. Should be in any day now. Also have a spare set of controls in my pantry that I got from the previous owner and have been meaning to swap in anyway because they're in a lot better shape and have the original handgrips (I'm not fond of the low-price aftermarket handgrips that are on it at the moment).
This was just such a WTF moment that I had to post it. Especially the fact that moving the left coil to the right side with the same wires that were running off of it *and* the same wires that were feeding it caused it to not spark. If not for the horn also failing and the starter button still working I'd think someone put an "only things on the left side work" curse on it.

 

[MrUnlucky]

slabghost » 57 minutes ago[/url]":33b5hxrr]
For trials like this jumper the car battery to the bike car NOT running.

Car? What car?
I have the slightly excessive battery out of my KZ440 on hand, but honestly probably need to replace the GL1100's battery anyway considering the solenoid-arcing I've had to do. Also the fact that the cause of the solenoid going bad was probably an unreliable connection inside the starter motor arcing (the way the copper ring just sits across the head of the bolt that the lead from the solenoid connects to seems designed to fail). If it was cooking the solenoid, it can't have been good for the battery.

 

[Tom_Charlton]

"but headlight doesn't come back on when I let go of the button. Oil light and Neutral Indicator Light stay on as normal, but headlight, tail light, and horn do not work. Speedometer and Tach lights only light up while holding start button."

Carefully clean the starter button, key switch, then check each connector for corrosion. Fill connectors with bulb grease as you go to eliminate future problems. If that doesn't work, wait for the new wiring harness. "Sometimes there are so many suspects you just shoot them all and get a new batch of thieves to work with."

 

[MrUnlucky]

PurpleGL1200I » Today, 8:26 am[/url]":2pmsfirr]
Carefully clean the starter button, key switch, then check each connector for corrosion. Fill connectors with bulb grease as you go to eliminate future problems. If that doesn't work, wait for the new wiring harness. "Sometimes there are so many suspects you just shoot them all and get a new batch of thieves to work with."

Right hand controls swapped out, no effect. I'm leaning more toward the wiring harness itself than the key switch since the fuse block, including the headlight/tail light fuse, does have 12v at both ends of all the fuses.
Looking over the wiring diagram again (I found one that shows that red/white wire) I'm thinking it's the Rectifier With Regulator (which is where that red/white wire goes). The green wire coming off of the Rectifier With Regulator goes to every system that is currently not functioning (including the ignition module and ignitors), but not to the starter button, starter motor, neutral indicator, or oil light which are working. It's also the negative terminal on the fuse block which shows no voltage potential to the fuses/positive while the key switch is on but does show continuity to battery ground when the key switch is off. Not sure how/why it's toggling back and forth between being a ground and being a hot, but it is a common element to every part of the bike that's currently not functioning.

 

[joedrum]

maybe the reg-ret is bad itself and causing the shorting

 

[Denver]

Sadly that's the way that i've been finding a lot of the electrical issues over the years, :whistling: if there's two of something in my possession, or spare parts. :smilie_happy:

 

[MrUnlucky]

So today I tried pulling all of the fuses to see if I can de-energize that wire.
On closer examination it seems I actually have the wiring harness (or at least fuse box) of an 83 and not an 82.
The fuses are (left to right)
10 10 05 15 05 10 instead of
15 05 05 10 05 05
A quick google shows that this doesn't seem to be unusual, but since the replacement wiring harness I ordered has the latter layout I'm worried I'll have problems swapping it in.

But that's not the fun part.

Removing all the fuses did de-energize that wire (after the battery charges a bit I'll try again to start it). With all fuses pulled, the top end of all fuse holders shows 12.4v to the negative terminal at the fuse block, just like the negative at the battery, except for the "Parking" fuse which only shows 0.8v. Putting in the "Accessory" fuse causes all voltages to drop from 12.4v to 11.5v and the "Parking" to drop to 0. Inserting any one of the three left fuses, (HEAD)(TURN CANCEL, TAIL, METER)(OIL TEMP NEUTRAL, FUEL, SUSPENSION) causes the oil and neutral lights to come on.
With only the "ACCESSORY" and "HORN STOP TURN" fuses in, the turn signal clicker buzzes but doesn't click, and the horn button makes the oil and neutral lights come on even though all three of the aforementioned fuses are removed.

And finally, inserting either the "HEAD" or "TURN CANCEL, TAIL, METER" fuses causes the fuse block negative to become a 12.4v positive.

Next up is disconnecting the headlight, horn, turn signals, tail light, etc to see if it's in the harness or in one or more of the lights. The Reg-Ret didn't come with the wiring harness, but I have another one ordered

 

[MrUnlucky]

"I'd rather be happy than right any day." -Slartiblartfast, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Got it running. Three possible culprits:
In the underside of the fuse box, where the wires plug in to the fuse terminals with crimp-on connectors, one wire was going from one side of the panel to the other under all the crimp-on connectors for the load side of the fuses which were all pushed down into it like scotch-loks. Re-checking the fuses after I pulled them out, half of them were bad but were reading continuity when I checked them in the fuse panel because the hot wire was making contact with all of the crimp-on connections. This, I think, is the most likely culprit

I also replaced my left-hand controls, and while my turn-signal-cancel and high-beam-indicator are no longer reversed, the turn signal indicators on the console have stopped working, as has the low beam headlight. So it's also possible that whatever was wrong with the turn signal cancel was the problem. I knew they were backwards because the turn signal switch wouldn't stay left or right while high beams were on and every time I turned my high beam indicator would blink on momentarily. There's also the possibility that the hot wire for the low beam was shorted somewhere. I'll investigate that tomorrow.

I haven't actually connected the new wiring harness yet (though I did feed it through the frame) because I wasn't sure if it would matter which stator wire got hooked to which port in the new wiring harness (old wiring harness doesn't have the plug, just three connections). The googles tell me it doesn't, so I'll probably proceed with connecting it up to see if the low beam and turn signal indicators come on tomorrow. Otherwise I'll just leave it in there as a spare for later.

 

[Ansimp]

Sounds like you maybe getting "lucky" arty:

 

[joedrum]

yep sounding good

 

[MrUnlucky]

Well she is running now, but still not as smoothly as she was before. At first I thought it was because I now had more fire in the cylinders and needed to readjust the carburetor, but any adjustment made things worse.
She definitely has more power at highway speeds now, but letting her get below 2000rpm makes her stutter and stall out, which is exactly how she was before I did the vacuum-gauge-carb-sync ritual (except for the "more power" part).
Possibly due to the replacement spark plug wires not being the proper part, they're a generic replacement set for cars with that whatever fiber core rather that my electrical meter doesn't read continuity through. I'll try swapping the other wires back in to see if it smooths out, but at this point I'm already determined to upgrade to a single-carb conversion and the C5 ignition so there's no point in trying to get another set of correct wires, I'll just put up with the rough idle for the moment, or maybe go back to the OEM wires and keep these in a ziploc in case it rains again. I at least got the right turn signal indicator straight (I plugged the wrong blue wire together) but still no idea why the low beam isn't working. I know the lamp itself is good because I checked it with a straight-to-battery connection while I was still looking for the ignition short,

 

[joedrum]

your getting there ....smart move ..c5 and single ...i couldnt be happier with mine ...its super reliable and kick ass too

 

[Denver]

Idle jets? :headscratch:

 

[slabghost]

1000 cams can be fitted into the 1100 heads making it easy to install the C5 on the head instead of crammed in the stock location. Cam change will add a bit of power also. It really seems to me most of the issue is with your ignition. Carb issue is secondary.

 

[MrUnlucky]

Did a bit more fiddling today. Got it idling somewhat smoothly and tried pulling spark plug wires to see which cylinders weren't firing at low rpm. This time it was the two rear. Noticing that the vacuum line for the vacuum-advance came off the #3 cylinder, I switched the two ignition coils again. Now the rear cylinders are firing and it will once again idle as low as 1300 before sputtering.
The coils are both new, installed less than 6 months ago, but I've heard a story about a guy having a short in his horn that somehow cooked his coil so maybe this one baked from the short in the fuse box. Or maybe, as my auto tech instructor used to say "There is a reason why NEW and GOOD are two different words."
I put in my order for the single carb yesterday, and week after next is rent, so I'm looking at ordering the C5 around the second week of november, I'll probably just put up with the wonky behavior until then. Not much point in buying a new coil now just to take it off again three weeks later.

One thing I'm wondering, probably a dumb question:
On the wiring for the coils, the black wire that feeds the front side of both coils also has a wire that goes back to a ceramic piece that is bolted on the top of the coil mount. These wires need to stay on the same side as the black lead they come off of, right? That's not supposed to be criss-crossed to balance surges or anything, is it? Mine are straight back.

One other thing, on a scale of "pain in the ass" to "completely impossible", how hard is it to replace the clutch pack without dropping the motor? I get an occasional grinding noise on high rev/high torque (uphill) start-offs. It doesn't do it when I'm shifting gears while rolling, only when starting, and it sounds like a sliding metal desk on a concrete floor doing an impression of a basset hound barking. I've wondered if it might even just be a small fragment of the old left-side head gasket (it was pretty much disintegrated) getting caught between the plates but went ahead and got a set of friction plates on GP. I think I've got a bearing around here somewhere also.

 

[slabghost]

MrUnlucky » Sat Oct 17, 2015 9:11 am[/url]":1u4ni9gi]
One thing I'm wondering, probably a dumb question:
On the wiring for the coils, the black wire that feeds the front side of both coils also has a wire that goes back to a ceramic piece that is bolted on the top of the coil mount. These wires need to stay on the same side as the black lead they come off of, right? That's not supposed to be criss-crossed to balance surges or anything, is it? Mine are straight back.

One other thing, on a scale of "pain in the ass" to "completely impossible", how hard is it to replace the clutch pack without dropping the motor? I get an occasional grinding noise on high rev/high torque (uphill) start-offs. It doesn't do it when I'm shifting gears while rolling, only when starting, and it sounds like a sliding metal desk on a concrete floor doing an impression of a basset hound barking. I've wondered if it might even just be a small fragment of the old left-side head gasket (it was pretty much disintegrated) getting caught between the plates but went ahead and got a set of friction plates on GP. I think I've got a bearing around here somewhere also.

On the "dumb question" That ceramic piece is the ballast resistor Through which the coils get their power feed. Except at start at which time the resistor is bypassed for full voltage to the coils. Swapping the wires from one coil to another should have no effect at all.
As for the clutch I've read you can replace the plates without removing the motor. You cannot remove the clutch basket without removing the motor. I hope this helps.

 

[dan filipi]

I have yet to find this ballist resistor bypass during start on the 1100.. None of the wiring diagrams indicate this is so.