T140 won't start

Ha the bastard won't start, there are apparently sparks and petrol and compression but it won't start. It coughs occasionally first kick, but nothing afterwards. I have checked much of the wiring, and did find a wire inverted on the coils which allowed me to get the lights working! But nothing conclusive, for some reason I thing the ignition is responsible somewhere, so have been looking at troubleshooting the Boyer Bransden ignition.

The BB ignition replaces the points with a back plate with two hall effect coils on it, a rotor with two magnets  fixed to it is fixed to the crank shaft end, and this generates signals which go to the black box which fires both coils at the same time (wasted spark), although I get a spark at the plugs thought I would take a look anyway!

If you remove the black/white wire and the brown/white wire and rub them together you should see a spark at the plugs - check!

If you move a magnet across the coils you should excite them and generate a spark - check except I had to touch the coils with the magnet to get them to fire!

I used a screwdriver to test the magnets on the rotor, and there didn't seem to be any magnetic power at all, so I removed the stator plate and the rotor and effectively very little magnetic power from the magnets! Strange it says on the Boyer site that the magnets should just about support the rotor plate when lifter with steel, mine don't! Maybe this is giving a too weak signal to the hall effect coils and not generating a signal when at speed?

The price of spare parts for the ignition is ridiculous so I am going try re magnetizing the magnets...... we'll see.

Removing the back plate gives access to the small rotor with the magnets screwed onto it.

Daytona

New O'rings and new vacuum and what a difference, I couln't make it pink at all! I think we can say we got that one!

Daytona

You can remove the throttle bodies partially to replace the o'rings

Showing half of the IVAC and throttle bodies

I haven't posted for a time, as I can't make my mind up whether to use this blog as my business update or not - I am leaning towards not....

Anyway, my Daytona has been pinking a lot lately, slightly less on SP98 fuel but still anything pulling a load below 4000 rpm, and it rattles a lot..... Talking to the virtual Triumph world the prognosis is an air leak somewhere. Either the IVAC hoses are cracked (this is a typical problem) or somewhere in the admission there is a leak.

Anyway planning a bigish trip so I wanted to get it sorted. So I stripped down the throttle bodies, and I have the o'rings on order.

In the mean time a couple of things to note, there was quite bit of oil droplets in the airbox, which is unusual never seen this before, we are not talking masses but more than usual.

The IVAC hose end pieces are cracked (at least two of them), so this maybe the problem, however am going to change the o'rings as they are ordered and are cheap anyway.

On a different subject I have now wired my USB charger port back to the battery, so I now have a readout of the battery voltage (a plus) but on the minus side the charge is on the whole time (a minus), it doesn't draw much without anything connected but enough to flatten the battery after about 5 days. Temporarily I am unplugging one of the spade connectors when the bike is parked up! What is interesting is that the voltmeter reads pretty much what you would expect around 14V when running, whereas when the thing was wired into the light circuit it was measuring between 9-11V - a very significant difference and enough to make the output derisory when on the light circuit!

Ducati ignition, 888

Well I thought I would site the ignition box on the mudguard next to the battery, so I extended some of the wires and got it looking rather nice, however when I put the seat unit on, it just touched the unit so I had to move it down nearer the rear cylinder air box, not so nice, but I really can't see another place to site it.

Anyway, it started up well, although I didn't leave it running long as was in the garage with doors closed! Anyway that's pretty much finished, although I need to road test it!

The horn button on the 888 doesn't work, so I took it apart and it's a simple contact between the push switch and connectors, however the metal insert in the push button was missing along with the spring. I turned up a small insert and glued it in, and then bent a small spring into the right shape and put it all back together, the battery is on charge, so will test later.

Ducati ignition

So I am replacing the ignition system on the Darmah, because the pickups weren't working correctly on the old system, the new system replaces the pickups, the magnetic rotor, and the ignition boxes. It has LEDs to show you where the pickups are in relation to the crank position, which are then removable so you don't have flashing lights going all the time, it also has multiple ignition curves which can be selected by a rotary switch. The components that I removed were :-
The pickups and wiring loom
The Bosch boxes
The resistances
I am trying to wire up the new ignition box using the 12v feed to the coils and the return from each coil, plus the four wires coming from the new pickups.

I wanted to position the ignition box between the coils, but on checking with the supplier he suggested I keep the box well away from the HT side of the circuit. I think I have enough wiring to be able to site the box nearer the battery.

Triumph Swinging arm bushes

So as you may remember I made a little tool to  insert the bushes into the swinging arm of the Triumph, which worked very well, and was used loads of times as you will see below. The thick part of the tool is a bit smaller than the inside diameter of the swinging arm tubes, the thin part is a bit thinner than the compressed bushes. The threaded bar, is used to pull the bushes in (or out).

Unfortunately, with the bushes in, it was impossible to insert the hardened steel spacers, I forced a bit but it would wreck the bushing copper to insert completely. After much cogitating, and contacting the guys that sold me the bushes (LP Williams) I decided the only way forward was to remove material from somewhere! Using emery cloth I first cleaned up the inside of the swinging arm tubes, then working slowly I sanded some material off the inside of the bushes, trying every few minutes by inserting the bushes and then trying to fit the spacers, it took me about 10 attempts as I didn't want to have play in the swinging arm!

Eventually managed to get a tight fit and using my tool on the second spacer to pull it in, the spacers have a tendency to displace the bushes and can cover the grease nipple hole so I screwed a screw (metric) into the hole to prevent the bush from moving over the hole, this worked fine although need to make sure it is not proud of the bush otherwise there will be contact with the spacer!

Ducati and others

So quick news on the Ducati Darmah. Eventually made a paper tool from some diagrams I scrounged off the internet. Fixed the pickups and still exactly the same.

Chris had the brilliant idea to swap the wires back to the way they were (badly). Swapped them back and it started first kick!

Trying to work through the logic of what is going on!

Also got a Honda Transalp in for an oil change and some damage repairs. That all went fine although the footrest hanger was impossible to bend!

Also have another XR400 Honda in, this one bogs down when really hot (dessert), from internet searches, this model runs too rich so will be cleaning out and refurbishing the carb with smaller jets. And also changing the small (deceleration) diaphragm shown below.