Electrical experts, I need some help

[fabiodriven]

I began tearing my Tecate apart today for some well-deserved attention and much to my surprise I don't have any spark. The trike has a Ricky Stator flywheel and stator and was fine in the past. Here's what happened-

The trike was parked a little over a year ago and ran fine at that time. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and it fired right up, albeit briefly. It only ran for probably a second or two. I kicked and kicked and couldn't even get a sputter after that.

In the past I have usually been a "parts swapper" when it comes to electrical issues like this. I tend to have enough spare parts to just swap 'em and hope for the best. In this case, I would like to take this opportunity to learn how to use an Ohm meter to test the various components. I don't want to pull the flywheel off if I don't have to, and I'm assuming everything is Kosher under there anyways. In my experience with both small engines and in automotive applications the problem is almost never the coil, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to test it. If that is the issue I have an NOS coil I can use.

Is there a way to check the CDI?

Thanks in advance gents.

[twitch101]

grab the service manual and it will give you resistance and voltage read outs of the cdi. stator windings get dirty and dont produce the electricity they used to. over time wire rot could have just made some loose connections too. just start at the stator and ohm everything out from there. you find and open somewhere i bet.

[fabiodriven]

OK, but I don't know how to check resistance and stuff. All I know how to do with my meter is read voltage.

[twitch101]

throw your meter on the ohms setting. the little glyph lookin symbol. when it read 0 or something like .1 its got perfect continuity meaning electricity will freely flow through the area being tested (touch the probes together)

anything over 1 is considered good as far as not being a short. if you have a speaker laying around the house you can push the probes on the terminals and it will give you the resistance of the speaker or speaker set depending on how its wired.

if you get a reading like 5000 Kohms or Mohms. or the reading OL that is considered open and there is no continuity meaning electricity will not flow.

i have a high end fluke that auto ranges. you may have an old school analog. tell me what you need help with and ill help you out.

[fabiodriven]

OK buddy. Thanks a lot for the help.

[Dirtcrasher]

I prefer analog meters for OHMMS. Digital meters from 4 different electricians seem to give different OHMM readings IMHO...........

Digital meters, you always start at the highest scale like 10K or 10,000 OHMMS, 2K is 2,000 OHMMS, 1K is 1000 OHMMS. If the highest reading shows nothing, you just drop down to the lower scales and if the meter still says nothing, it's open.

[twitch101]

depends what your looking for. there is a calibrated give or take but its nothing over .3. i only have experience with flukes though (amp clamp, dmm 87 V). analog meters are what i would use to pick up unstable voltage in equipment i work on. analogs will show sudden drops in voltage before a dmm will just because the dmm is keeping a very tight average.

[tri-Z ripper]

Fabio i can also help you buddy im and electrician and also can rebuild harnesses.

[fabiodriven]

Thanks Ripper. So I've got my meter, and I've got my trike here. What's step #1?

[hang&rattle]

Thanks fabiodriven and the gentleman helping. I have never asked many questions on electrical because it seemed to foreign to me. Stumbled on this thread as I was going to attempt to trouble shoot my front headlight again which is suppose to be functionable. Rode for only an hour last night till' dark, 5:30, lol, so a light and properly functioning electrical is important in the cold and winter. Will an inexpensive brand of meter work (walmart?), what is the brand being used?

[fabiodriven]

Will an inexpensive brand of meter work (walmart?), what is the brand being used?

Mine is just a cheez-o little digital jobby. It should do all we need to do I think, but then again I'm not the expert...

[hang&rattle]

Hmmm, googled the brand name 'cheez-o' and got some food products (kidding), will you post up what you're doing and what you find step by step?, this would be really helpful to learn Fabiodriven, thanks- Robby.

[fabiodriven]

I can do that. I don't have my camera today, but I'll bring it in tomorrow.

[jb2wheels]

Did you try a new spark plug?

[fabiodriven]

Did you try a new spark plug?

C'mon guy...

[Mosh]

Youtube how to use a DMM. There is some good instructional vids to walk you through meter reading and operation.

There is 6 (generic) parts to a 2 stroke ignition.

We will start with the stator and flywheel.

The stator and flywheel does 3 things on you bike.

The flywheel contains magnets that when passing (spinning) by the coils generates a small voltage, that is ramped up by the coils under the flywheel. These amped up voltages are passed on to the CDI and coil, or lighting sytem.

What the stator does.(It usually is a stationary plate that contains your exciter and pick up coils).(Exciter coils do just that. They Excite or boost a small voltage to a larger voltage that can be used by the CDI or lights and coil)
The pick up coil:
1) Provides a firing sequence. This is done by the Pick up coil. A 2 wire magnet that senses the firing stroke also known as TDC. All this part does is trigger a signal to the CDI to fire the coil at the correct time.There is a timed pickup on the flywheel to trigger this coil. Once triggered, it sends a signal to the CDI to collpase the coil circuit rto shoot spark to the plug. It is normally a tiny black box with a steel pole on the end.
If your flywheel key shears and the wheel moves off the key center, it generally still sparks, but at the wrong time causing backfires and no running. Much like installing a distributor 180 out on a car.

2) The exciter coil. This magnfies the AC voltage generated by the flywheel passing the coil. It takes a small AC voltage and bumps it up to a voltage that can excite the coil windings to provide adequate spark. There is a resistance value to this coil. Usually around 200-500 ohms. It is machine specific, so check the manual.

3) The lighting coil. All this does is provide power for the lights. Once again, it works much the same as the exciter coil, but sends power to the regulator and lights.
If it fails, most times the machine still runs.

4) Coil. All this does is store a boosted charge generated by the exciter coil that when collapsed shoots a higher energy to fire the plug. Usually the CDI watches for the pick-up coil signal, then triggers the coil at TDC when it sees that te engine is a TDC of fire stroke.

5) The CDI. This is responsible for relaying the pick-up pulse to the coil for ignition timing. So when you get on it, the CDI advances spark timing to keep up with engine demands.

6) The harness. any open circuits in the harness from the stator to CDI or CDI to coil will cause a loss of spark. The circuits are easy to check with resistance between each of the connectors with all items unplugged. You measure one wire at a time with resistance from one end to the other. You should have less than 10 ohms.
OL will mean that there is a break in the wire somewhere.
Anything more than 10 ohms would indicate a corroded wire.

All the off/on switch does is ground the coil so it wont spark. Usually you can disconnect the switch and it will not ground the coil. If it runs, then your switch is bad.


Using your manual and the DMM or meter, test your AC output for the exciter coil. This is done by unplugging the stator and setting your meter to the AC volts millvolts setting, and testing the 2 leads off the stator plug that run from the exciter coil. You then kick the motor over and read the AC volts. Most will require at Least 150 AC millivolts when kicking to excite the coil for spark. The manual also has a still resistance spec across the same 2 circuits. Usually around 250 ohms.

So basically there is only a couple items for no spark.

1 the exicter coil has gone bad and is out of resistance.
2 The pick-up coil is shorted and wont tell the CDI when to trigger the coil
3 the CDI itself, which is not testable for the average guy.
4 Wiring
5 coil or wire or plug.


Over 15 years and working on many bikes, most failures are stators, or pick-up coils or the exciter coil in the stator or sheared flywheel keys.
You having a Tecate, stators have a high fail rate. It should be easy to diagnose if you follow the manual and watch the DMM vids on youtube.
I have only seen about a handful of bad CDI's.

Hope this makes some sense.

[twitch101]

mosh got it right on the head. start from the stator. thats the beginning of your measurable electric circuit.

[fabiodriven]

Great guys, thanks a lot. I was hoping it wasn't anything under the flywheel, but it sounds like it very well may be. Like I said, I do have the Ricky Stator in there so I figured it would be OK. Maybe not.

Thank you very much Mosh.

[Mosh]

No sweat. Let us know.

FYI. I had a Ricks" stator in my R. The exciter coil puked in less than 2 years.

[200XMichigan]

I got a Craftsman multimeter from K-Mart and it has held up great. I have had it for 5 years and some of the time I was using it everyday. It comes with a good booklet the explains all the symbols. Once you get used to using the multimeter its a great tool. Hope it all goes good for ya. And you can usually sneak the probe into a connection while it is still connected as long at the clear ends are not too brittle.

[Dirtcrasher]

I told Fabio the best place to put the meters - probes/needle/ends is in back of the connector where the wires enter, not the front or connection side........

[fabiodriven]

Well, I am looking at this thing right now and I have 3 wires (Not including for the lights) coming from my stator going to the CDI. From what Mosh says, I should have 150 millvolts coming from the stator? My problem is, there are 3 wires coming from my stator not two. I have no idea which one does what and what to test.

[twitch101]

colors? standard colors are for DC are black - red +. BUT in the world of generators ;) which is what that is. your stator puts out AC power so maybe there is a hot, neutral, and ground.

a pic would help more than anything.