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View Full Version : Stupid ATC 110 Cylinder Head Question



derrick81787
04-05-2016, 07:06 PM
Hi everyone,

So I've been missing with my 1980 ATC 110 trying to fix what I thought was an air leak around my intake manifold gasket. I finally fixed that, was sure it was going to work, and then seemingly nothing changed. The 110 idles okay and does okay at really slow speeds, but it completely craps out when I give it any throttle.

Then I was looking at the intake manifold are and saw what look like a hole in my cylinder head that I've somehow never noticed before. I've attached pictures so that you can see what I mean.

Is that what I think it is? Do I just have some huge hole in my cylinder head somehow? I think that I probably know the answer to this, but there's not supposed to be anything like this there, is there?

Mackus84
04-05-2016, 07:15 PM
I could be completely wrong due to limited knowledge on the 110's, but no. Lol. Absolutely not supposed to be a hole in the head like that. Looks like its busted through somehow

1979atc
04-05-2016, 08:12 PM
It is supposed to be like that. Air goes thru there while riding, and cools the head. Aircooled... I think your timing maybe off due to the way your bike is running. Bad points, points plate not in correct spot, valve adjustment, could be also carb. These are just examples of what could be wrong, something else could be wrong but would be a good idea to check these.

Mackus84
04-05-2016, 09:13 PM
Wow. Thats crazy. Ive never seen that. Guess ill have to check when i get home, i just picked up a 110 a cpl days ago. Tore it apart but didnt notice that. New to me. Glad this questions been answered already before i did notice it!!!. Thanks guys

derrick81787
04-05-2016, 09:23 PM
Thanks guys. I haven't had this ATC for long and am just starting out with this maintenance stuff. I was looking at the intake manifold, saw that, and had a moment where I thought "have I seen that before?" It looked kind of out of place, but I wasn't sure. I'm relieved to know that I don't have a major problem on my hands. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I will look up how to adjust the timing, points, valves, etc and see how it goes. Thanks for the help.

Mackus84
04-05-2016, 11:05 PM
Well I'll be damned. It IS there. Here i am saying definitely didnt think it should be, and i have one in the garage! Sure enough. Its there. (In my defense, i just got the bike. And was at work when i answered haha.
229998

ps2fixer
04-06-2016, 12:03 AM
I was about to chime in and offer up an ATC110 head... but it probably has that hole too lol!

derrick81787
04-06-2016, 11:09 AM
It's a real jagged hole too. It definitely looks like something that broke, not something that's supposed to be there. Oh well. At least I can feel better knowing that it's probably just my timing or points or something. I recently had the valves replaced, so I'm hoping they are okay. And I did have an air leak on my intake manifold that is fixed now, but I guess that just wasn't the main culprit here.

yaegerb
04-06-2016, 11:20 AM
have you cleaned and rebuilt the carb yet?

atc300r
04-06-2016, 11:49 AM
Try a new coil or different coil.The one under the gas tank.How old is your spark plug.Fouled plug could cause your problems aswell.

derrick81787
04-06-2016, 11:56 AM
Yeah, I also fixed the stripped holes with a Helicoil and have the manifold bolted down tight with a new gasket. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about the carb now. It did run a little bit better this last time around and it idles perfectly, but it's still having trouble when I give it a lot of gas. I'm kind of thinking that it has to be the timing or points or something now because there's not really anything more left to do with the carb or intake manifold.

I have the service manual and have been reading about adjusting the timing. I was nervous about it (which is why I did the carb first, hoping that would fix it), but it really doesn't look too bad. It looks like something that can be done while the engine is mounted in the frame and fully assembled, other than removing the starter and the valve cover. I guess that I just need to get a spark plug tester and go at it. Hopefully when I get it opened up I will see that it is out of timing, and that will that. I've got a 7 1/2 month old baby, and the wife thinks I'm spending too much time working on this, haha.

Edit: Spark plug is brand new. This last test ride was the very first time that plug has been used, but the problem was still there. Does this sound more like a coil problem or a timing problem? I don't really know. At this point I'm pretty much doing what you people tell me, haha.

atc300r
04-06-2016, 12:46 PM
My 85 250r started,idled and ran fine up to half throttle with a bad coil. I know mine is 2 stroke and your is 4 stroke but it sounds like it very well could be coil. or stator. In my opinion if you clean the carb put in a new plug have fresh gas and your machine still runs crappy. Its time to look elsewhere for trouble. Just my opinion though.Iv been around trikes and small engines since I was a teen . I also went to trade school for small engine repair and was the top of my class. Not bragging just saying and Im still learning new stuff everyday.

Mackus84
04-06-2016, 06:15 PM
I've got a 7 1/2 month old baby, and the wife thinks I'm spending too much time working on this, haha.
Haha. Funny, my wife loves when im out working on mine, because im not in there bugging her lol we have an 8 month old son

mendoAu
04-07-2016, 05:49 AM
Did you check the fuel tank for crapage. I just picked up a 110 and the tank was full of rust. Fuel would still flow to the carb but not enough at higher RPMs. If you have an air compressor blow some air thru the gas line into the tank (disconnect from the carb) and make sure it's clear.

derrick81787
04-07-2016, 11:54 AM
Haha. Funny, my wife loves when im out working on mine, because im not in there bugging her lol we have an 8 month old son

I wish. My wife stays home with him during the day and is ready to hand him off by the time I get home from work, haha. He has been a little bit more of a handful lately than usual, though.

My gas tank was full of rust when I got it, but since then it's been cleaned out. The fuel lines have been replaced and now have inline fuel filters, and the filters look clean. I'm going to look at the timing and the points as soon as I can. I need to replace my starter rope anyway. It was rotten and broke one day when I was trying to start it. I've been getting by with the rope being shorter than normal, but I might as well replace the rope and check on the timing and points all at the same time.

I had a guy replace the piston and rings for me back in December. He said that he fixed the timing then, but then again I didn't have the best experience with him so he might have screwed it up. He didn't say anything at all about the points.

It is significantly better since fixing the carb and the intake manifold, but it's still not where it should be. If I slowly accelerate then I am okay most of the time, but for some reason it really craps out when I attempt a sudden acceleration. I'm going to replace the starter rope because it's really annoying me, and then I'm going to take a look at the points and timing. Hopefully there's some adjustment I can do there that will help out.

ps2fixer
04-09-2016, 01:19 PM
When the piston was put in, he had to take the timing chain off, so I don't see how it would be possible to "fix" the timing when most likely he didn't check it before hand since it was a piston replace job.

Anyway, timing is easy to check, but a little bit of a pain to adjust/change. Follow the service manual instructions to the T and you will know if the timing is correct. I'm going to go off the deep end and guess he timed it to the wrong mark on the fly wheel. There is a T and F marks, one for mechanical timing, the other for ignition timing (points) if I remember correctly.

derrick81787
04-11-2016, 12:06 PM
Fixed might have been the wrong word, but what I meant was that he set the timing after doing the cylinder head work. I'm hoping that he set it close but not quite right. Or, the trend with this thing has been that a bunch of threads have been stripped. So maybe he set it right but the screws worked their way loose or something. I don't know.

I'm going to try and find a new starter rope and fix the starter first. Then, I'm either going to try and check the points and timing or else see if a friend of mine can help.

Do you know what type of rope I should use for the starter assembly? My plan is to just take a broken piece of the rope to the store with me and look for similar starter rope. If that doesn't work then I'll probably just buy some polyester rope or something, but it would be nice to actually get the right kind.

ps2fixer
04-11-2016, 01:07 PM
If you have a local Honda dealer, that might be a good option. I looked up the price for a 680 Rincon and the pull rope is $5-6, not bad really. Of course the ATC110 one is out of production, but the Rincon one I'd think is long enough. Pretty sure it is the same size of rope, and it is for a 680cc engine so it will be strong enough =).

http://www.partzilla.com/parts/detail/honda/HP-28407-HN8-003.html

Not just any rope will work, it has to be some pretty strong stuff. My local hardware store carries pull rope. If I remember correctly small chainsaw pull rope was something like $0.50/foot.

I hope it is just the ignition timing too (points) since it is way easier to adjust. The mechanical timing is the crank vs cam + valves) timing and requires some disassembly of the engine.

derrick81787
04-22-2016, 03:00 PM
I took a little bit of a break from working on it while waiting for my new starter rope to come in, but I'm back to it now.

I replaced the pull rope and reassembled and reattached the starter. It is fine now, and the new rope came with a much more comfortable handle as well.

The ignition timing looked good. I made a few small adjustments, but everything I did either had no effect or made it worse, so I put the timing back to where it was when I started.

The point gap looked good. I didn't check the valve gap because I don't have the correct feeler gauge, but I just got the valves replaced and kind of suspect that they are probably fine. A friend of mine is going to try to help me diagnose the issue sometime in the next week or two. I think he has a bunch of feeler gauges, so we can check the valve clearances then.

Even though I haven't really changed anything, the symptoms have gotten worse. It's gone from no power when at full throttle, to no power hardly ever. Yesterday, I even had trouble keeping it idling, and when all of this started it was idling perfectly. My normally tan spark plug is fouled too. I cleaned it, but it quickly became fouled again. I haven't touched the carb in a while now, and the fuel air mixture was fine when I quit working on it.

Does this sound like my coil is slowly failing, causing the spark to be too weak to ignite the fuel? Maybe atc300r is right. I just wanted to make sure and check all the free fixes before I start buying parts, though. Is there an easy way to test the coil?

ps2fixer
04-23-2016, 10:46 AM
Here are the coil specs for a 81 atc110, should be the same or very close.

https://gyazo.com/188eba8808db7ba24d0bf842408cca08

derrick81787
04-25-2016, 11:38 AM
That looks easy. It sounds like I just need to get a hold of an Ohm meter and that everything else is pretty much self explanatory. Hopefully I'll test it, it will be bad, and now I have an easy fix. I just don't want to start blindly buying parts because this is the 3rd or 4th thing I've suspected, so I'd be broke by now if I bought parts for everything I thought was wrong.

Edit: That said, I just found one for $10.50. For some reason, I had it in my head that they were closer to $50. I might just go ahead and replace the coil after all.

derrick81787
05-06-2016, 11:26 AM
The bike is fixed and running great, so I just wanted to post some info here for future readers.

First of all, the 1981 ignition coil is completely different than the 1980 ignition coil and does not work on a 1980. The 1981-85 coil looks like this (http://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Honda-ATC110-Wheeler-Trike/dp/B00O0G83CC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462198242&sr=8-1&keywords=atc+110+ignition+coil) and has completely different ohm values than the '80. The 1980 looks similar to but not exactly like this (http://www.amazon.com/Caltric-IGNITION-Honda-ATC-70-1978-1985/dp/B00SFS947E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462198326&sr=8-2&keywords=atc+70+ignition+coil), and I'm actually having a hard time finding a replacement that doesn't have horrible reviews.

Secondly, this (http://www.amazon.com/Strength-Recoil-Starter-Handle-Assembly/dp/B01CRAAJAQ?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00) is a great replacement for the pull rope. It is the correct diameter, is strong, the right length (a couple inches shorter than the rope it replaced, but still more than long enough), and comes with a handle that is larger, softer, and all around nicer than the stock handle.

Thirdly, the timing was my problem all along. The timing was really retarded. I don't know if the points plate slipped while I was driving it one day or what. Earlier, I had advanced it quite a bit without really experiencing any difference with the way it ran, but I didn't go far enough. I had a mechanic friend of mine come help me, and he turned that timing plate 1/8 of a turn or farther while trying to set the timing using the "F" mark. Then we reinstalled the starter and it wouldn't start, so he turned it back a little. It started but backfired a lot, so while it was running he turned it back some more until it sounded good. Eventually, we settled on a spot, and it runs like brand new now. It might even run a little better than it did when I first got it back from getting the piston and rings replaced a while back.

Thanks for all your help. Maybe this information will help out somebody else who is having similar issues.

350for350
05-08-2016, 09:31 PM
Glad to hear that you're rolling again. Have fun!