Magneto say Fuel - Spark = Bitch won't start ? Renamed

[duTch]

 
What am I missing?? (I know that's been asked before)

 A couple of weeks ago, I did stuff (cleaned slip ring++) that made mine run real good (good Inglish hey?)...then I ran into some folk at the pub I hadn't seen for a while, and girl buddy Kym says " I always hear you coming and know it's you..."  ... and I said "yeah it's runnin' real... (at this point she punched in the gob and said 'don't say it- but I said it anyway..) ...good, hey "...and then I  +*beer*+ left..

 Next morning started up to go to a job, and a bit rough- nothing untoward, usually evens out, but not that day...only had to go a few K's, but dinae git inny better...conked out on the left, and occasionally fired but right plug was ok,  then conked out altogether at the lights and had to push it past the copshop to the job  ... had to truck it back to the (very) Low Chaparral...

 So I have fuel which comes through the idle/main circuits if i blow air in the pilot intake (cough-spit)..spark on new plugs x2 sets = sometimes is good on both, and sometimes better on one, and fires up on the left, but not the right and dies after a few rounds.

 Points gap varies ~12/~14 thou, but always been ok...spring not touching cam ring...earth brushes cleaned- 2 sets new plugs B6ES/BP6ES

 Slip-ring looks a bit 'crazed'...I'm wondering if that's playing up.
 Maggie has done ~10K miles since rebuild (20 years ago), and ol' mate assured me it'll last me out...no reason to doubt that..

 I've swapped the (new) pickups/brushes/leads/caps/plugs.....why would it run on one side and not the other with various combos of that??

   


 

[muskrat]

G'day duTch.
Wot didya use to clean the slipring? May have smeared a bit of carbon around causing kayos. Clean it again with electrick contact cleaner.
Cheers

[duTch]

 First I used metho- or was it the beer well oneof'em...maybe that's why I fell over

 nah not really- but somewhere along I might've used brake or carby cleaner or cable lube....I know I was doing the Gutzzi clutch cable concurrently or maybe the Bakers ZnOH soldering flux ....or...maybe the beetroot juice

[duTch]

 I'd say I was joking, but that's about how it went ^^^-truthful-ish without being serious


  Like nothing changed overnight- 

[RichardL]

Grasping at straws, of course, to explain the change between the morning and the trip home from the pub.

Here are some maybe's (maybe all remote):

• One (or both) of the  pickup brush holder clips was not quite in position and slipped off, allowing the holder to slip out.
• Wire has come loose from the contact inside the pickup brush holder.
• Contaminated fuel, maybe by malicious prank while you were in the pub.

OK, if history repeats itself, someone in Australia or Ireland or someplace else will now provide the simple and correct cause of the problem.

Richard L.

[Black Sheep]

Sounds like the magneto is crying out for attention. A good indication of a failing mag is it running only one one side or the other, but not both. Crazing on the slip ring might indicate tracking there. If the brushes are soft carbon (as so many aftermarket ones are these days), cleaning the slip ring may well have spread a thin film of carbon round the slip ring. Take out the brushes, make sure they are really clean, clean the slip ring thoroughly and dry it and maybe, just maybe all will be well again. 

[duTch]

 When I started this topic, I wasn't sure whether to start this in this section, but just have to see what transpires from here...

 Just had another look at the Maggie as per Groilies  post here;

Re: K2K Magneto - no spark
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2017, 19:19:20 »

    Quote As Beezermacc and Wozza say.
If you wanted, you could test for basic HT continuity by sticking a meter from the brass segment of the slipring  to the mag body having removed a pick-up - should be a few thousand ohms. An infinite reading means trouble, probably because the coil is open line or, best case, is not connected properly to the slipring (or earth). At least you'd then know you had a real problem on your hands.
You should see the same K ohms from the contact breaker centre screw to the slipring, and should have (almost for sure will have), less than 1 ohm from the cb screw to the mag body with the points held open. This will show the low tension primary winding is OK and will also tell you that the coil is indeed earthed as both primary and HT winding are earthed in common.
Suspect you need to talk to Beezermacc!     

  So I did that on three different meters (40K & 20K scales) and;
 "brass segment of the slipring  to the mag body" reads        18.9KΩ- (sounds a bit high?) on *20KΩ scale* and,
 " cb screw to the mag body with the points held open"  reads 1.8Ω-2.0Ω  (also too high?) EDIT; (on 400 Ω scale)

 I also have the same 18.9K reading from the slipring through the leads to the plug tips (both sides)

 Now I'll go kick it in the guts and see what happens, and hope no-one tells me I'm wasting my time.

 As I think I said, it was refurbished 10K miles ago by a renowned engineer dude Les McKitterick (now retired)

 Slip-ring also cleaned and fitted with new (never been used) aftermarket pickups...stay tuned I guess

[duTch]

 Sorry Richard I forgot to answer you questions. The fuel is only a couple of weeks old (when the saga started) but due for .. ..oh I just remembered I almost ran dry and used some I had in a jerry-can from January, but surely that should be ok... might just run out and buy some fresh stuff anyway...but I'd find it hard to believe it'd go off overnight.

 I doubt it was spiked at the pub or otherwise, as I park up the back in a corner, and was only there for two beers (2x 10 Imp.Oz= 1.25 US pint)

 All the leads were/are connected ok

[duTch]

 

.........Sounds like the magneto is crying out for attention. A good indication of a failing mag is it running only one one side or the other, but not both. Crazing on the slip ring might indicate tracking there. .....

  Yo that's what I'm thinking, weird thing is that it was mis/not firing on the Left and fully running on the Right, but now it fires on the Left only, but only a few revs and dies....but on Saturday, I had what I thought was nice regular fat blue sparks both sides...  am wondering if an 'Easycap' might rectify things 

 I've been trawling the site for similar issues, closest I can find thus far is this from Richard (and I like that little opening pun )- but I'm sure there's more;



 

  Recapping, for clarification, this goes back to your June 8, 2016 post regarding easy starting cold and hard starting with warm engine. I have just started having this same issue, so I am telling a bit of my story hoping you get something from it and, also, tagging along for whatever advice is offered.

My immediate suspicion was magneto problems, either a bad cap or LT windings leaking with heat. My cap is a new EasyCap, so that is very doubtful. To test the issue I went out for a ride that was long enough to warm everything up. On getting home, I immediately pulled the plugs and tested for spark across about a 0.150" gap. No problem leaping that gap. I also tested with the plugs that I had just pulled from the bike and the result was a good hot spark. Tested compression on both sides. All good. This was all just yesterday, so I have yet to check timing and look for possible carb issues.

Richard L.   

[RichardL]

Dutch, The problem here is that I can't remember what the actual fix turned out to be for that topic and it's not discussed in a later post. While wracking my brain, I remembered a diferent time when I rotated the cam ring housing 180 deg. in order to get access to the cam ring adjuster. This messed up the symetry of the points opening and one side was barely opening, if at all, and starting was impossible.

Gotta send before running out of battery.

Richard L.

[RichardL]

Thinking further on this,  I believe it turned out to be timing. All this was happening right when the T-shirt issues were getting resolved. Then, a week or two later I discovered shims in the sump,  one week before the DGR ride. So, I forgot to post a followup in the tear-down frenzy.

Richard L.

[duTch]

 Thanks Richard- I actually had tree-compose that because I lost my initial draft when I returned to the 'reply' page after going back to copy your post .

  My intention was to check is which  'Easycap' is needed bit I just did some research and found by my reckoning the CO1 is the part/alternatively CO4, (they sound like Carbon gasses)

[groily]

  So I did that on three different meters (40K & 20K scales) and;
 "brass segment of the slipring  to the mag body" reads        18.9KΩ- (sounds a bit high?) and,
 " cb screw to the mag body with the points held open"  reads 1.8Ω-2.0Ω  (also too high?) EDIT; (on 400 Ω scale)

 I also have the same 18.9K reading from the slipring through the leads to the plug tips (both sides)

 Now I'll go kick it in the guts and see what happens, and hope no-one tells me I'm wasting my time.



Your 18.9K is def high on the HT if you were getting good clean contact on the slipring and assuming the earth brush - under the screw on top of the mag - is also making decent contact (and that the meter is OK too). It's a slightly 'funny' number to me, as more often with a continuity problem we're talking Mega ohms or infinite resistance than a kilo-ohms thing,
Could 'just' be your slipring to coil connection is bad though - the attachment is not the greatest engineering design on the planet by a long shot, with just a spiky bit of wire going into a small hole in the ring and hopefully making a good contact inside.  Or that the earth connection of the low tension lead is poor at the condenser due to a dry joint or something - that connection earths both the HT and LT windings. Much less likely that though - because if it was a bad joint, you'd see a high reading on the LT too.
Your reading on the low tension is probably fine - meters aren't that good at very low readings sometimes.

New pick-ups and brushes . . .  Probably not your problem here although the symptoms do match, as all is brand new and things are squeaky clean still. BUT there are, as often stated here, a lot of really crap brushes out there that are too soft, cause dust to form on the slipring and then cause  erratic running and misfiring on one or both sides.  In any event, I'd check the brushes aren't soft enough to 'write like a pencil' and chuck them over the hedge if they are as it will be a problem later. And I'd check that there are no tingles coming off the HT pick-ups with the engine running - the dielectric strength of some of the stuff being sold out there is pathetic.

For me, though, the number one thing here is to see why that HT reading is three times higher than we'd expect, because whatever else you do, if there's something not right in the coil/slipring department, the problem won't go away. As long as the earth wiring connection is sound, the condenser won't affect those readings although it could be dead or dying and would also cause erratic running etc if it were.
(Btw, C01 for anti-clockwise drive mag with brass contact breaker; C04 for the later low inertia steel cb assembly if you go there)

[duTch]

 Thanks groily- funny, I've reaad lots of your posts, but I think maybe never actually interacted (?)

 I just finished ordering two CO1's as a precaution anyway.
The New pickups are from a swap stall, so unsure of quality, and 90º ones that I had to cut a corner off to sit ok

 One of the meters I used is a 'Amprobe 33XR-A', cost me ~$150 bucks a while back for other dangerous explorations .

 There was about 0.4 - 0.5 Ω residual on the LT side with a reading of ~ 2.4Ω (by my reckoning).

 I wonder if I should hunt down Les, and ask him if there's any chance he may have wound the HT side high- if that's possible ?
 I cleaned up the earth brushes again (one under CB plate & one in the body which had a fibre washer that I ditched), but made no difference (I cleaned them all the other week with the slip ring, which was significant to it running as well as it was that I was skyting about- irony).
 
Is there any reason I can't pull the CB end off the maggie in situ and have a dekko - nah forget that- remembered the whatzit screws?

 I'm about to head up the road for a feed, and will post a pic (or two?) of the slip-ring that I took the other week- finally found 'em. Can't think much else just now, cheers
 

[duTch]

 
 Piccie of my slip ring, and I thought the points spring may have been a bit close to the post , so jammed a bit of cardboard in there to pack it out- but made no difference