Help with my 1985 atc 200x

[ps2fixer]

Ah yea, I didn't go over the numbers.

0.208k or 208 ohms for the exciter is within spec.

14.5-14.8k ohms for the OEM one is way out of spec, I'm not even sure how it could get that high.

I was also just talking to a guy on the phone about some tech stuff around CDI's and such and mentioned your issue, and he bought up a good point. Did you check the gap on your pulse generator to rotor (under the CDI cover on the head). Also based on what he told me, you can install the pulse generator 180 degrees off and there's a small adjustment for timing.

Spec should be 0.012-0.016in or 0.3-0.4mm. There's also photos in the service manual to reference if it's 180 degrees off or not and how to time it. It's all under the electrical system, page 200 and on for the one I have.

[Tacky]

Hmmm more to ponder. I did check the gap on the pulse generator it is set to the book spec, did it with a feeler gauge. As for the oem exciter coil, now that I have put it back in, guess I am gonna have to pull it again, and put in the ricky stator again sinxe it is in spec. I did think that was a wild difference between the 2.

So that was the right wiring harness correct? I assume so.

As for the pulse generator I installed it per the books instructions, the marking dot on the base, the line on the advancer and line on the generator. I set the pulse generator at its 12 o'clock setting while the crank was on the firing mark. I thought about the timing advance however the book was showing that was set with a timing light and the motor running, which will be hard for me to do since I can't get the spark to get it running. That is unless I missed something somewhere but I have read that manual many mamy times trying to figure this out.. It seems it would be hard to put the spark advancer 180 degrees off since it has a pin on the camshaft that it has to go over to be installed correctly. Monday I am gonna pull the pulse generator cover and reinspect that and resolder in the RS exciter coil that is within spec. Working at the firehouse today. Keep the ideas coming, I need the help, and a stiff drink.

[ps2fixer]

Haha, yea electrical issues can be stressful. Half wish I could just show up there with my multi meter and peak voltage adapter I built and probe around and get a better idea what the problem is. Also, yea the harness should be the right one, atleast the part number matches your machine.

I don't think the guy I was talking to was talking about the rotor being 180, but the actual pulse generator plate. If it matches the service manual, it should be right though.

Not sure how you feel about buying extra tools/adapters and such, but if you want, you could throw around $25 at a cheap peak voltage adapter. This should allow you to read the voltage out of the exciter coil (min is generally around 100v at kick starting speed), and the pulse generator should be min 0.7v. My 350x reads 80v for the exciter and 1.2v for the pulse generator at a soft kick and it's fast enough for it to run off of, granted different coil, CDI etc than your machine, but should be pretty similar stuff. I can help with the peak voltage test if you buy the adapter, it kind of gives a true number what's going on, even though the ohms readings should be accurate enough. Aftermarket parts kind of throws the ohm specs out the window a bit though.


Sort of unrelated/off topic rambling vvv

I have an idea for a thing to dev to try to help with some of the electrical issues on 3 wheelers in general (mainly Honda). Not sure about it being a product to sell, but maybe something to rent out or something. Basically I've been getting into electronics and micro controllers quite alot lately, and in theory I should be able to make a tester that would plug into the CDI plug and read the Ohm resistances like I've had you do with the multi meter, and also flip a switch or something (or press a button) to turn it into a peak voltage tester (exciter and pulse generator could be tested at the same time). Might even be able to get fancy enough to piggy back it so the OEM CDI could be plugged in to start the bike to take running measurements like spark advancement and to see if the coil is even getting any sort of signal to fire from the CDI box. A lot of the things could be done individually with some thinking like small light bulbs and such, but a self contained tester would probably be pretty nice I think. At least it would take some of the guess work out of if the right wire is hooked up and such. Of course this whole thing is just an idea, I haven't played with electronics to know just how easy/hard something like that would be to make, and clearly it would need some sort of display. I would have to do a lot of testing on my own machines to be sure something like this is even accurate lol. Clearly it wouldn't be limited to one machine, and it would be more or less the same for any atv/engine with the same CDI pin out assuming the specs are the same/similar (should be able to program them in fairly easy assuming there's enough memory for it). If not, could always have a web page or print out of the specs per machine.

Another similar project I'm hoping to do is a CDI tester, basically one that simulates the exciter coil and pulse generator coil at any RPM I want to make it go at. In theory I should be able to adjust how strong/weak the voltages are to test how low a CDI can go before cutting out etc. I have yet to properly trigger a Chinese basic analog CDI with one, but haven't spent much time on it, just burned up one of my AC power supplies from an old NES that had a bad cord at the console plug area. I think I had some conflicting circuits hooked up, like instead of having an ignition coil, I had the peak voltage tester there, which might have been drawing too much power for the AC power supply (the cap inside charges though the coil from what I've seen/followed on the diagrams and it was more or less a short instead of the low ohms load).

Anyway probably should stop talking about electronics, not really going to help the issue at hand unless I had it built lol.

[Tacky]

Yahtzee, I think I found the culprit. Last night I could not sleep, when I get something on my mind just wanders aimlessly. So I decided to get up about 4am. got my stuff ready for work then decided to go ahead and replace the exciter coil back to the ricky stator, that measured correctly. Well after removing the old one, I had to short of a wire. So I pulled some more and noticed that the wire was broken where it enters the the flywheel cover. Both were actually, but being they are insulated with 3 diffferent sheaves it is fairly easy to miss that small detail. So I removed the broken wires and reinstalled 2 new 18 gauge wires through the gasket on the cover. I then put the factory outer sheave back over the wires. I then took an ohm measurement and got the same readings I got on the actual coils. So the wiring is now good. Didn't have time to try it, but tomorrow definately will. That could have been the problem all along, and a stroke of luck lead me to it. So I keep my fingers crossed that it was the culprit. One question, do you think the 18 gauge wire is large enough size for the load?

[ps2fixer]

Yea, 18 gauge wire is the standard goto size. It can handle something like 12 or 15 amps for a short distance. There's wire sizing calcs out there to show limits etc, longest wire run is like 6ft and that's to a 5-10w tail light.

The thing that is really critical though is the wire insulation. Most generic wire will melt at a low temp, you need some good quality high temp wire like 105C rated. I personally use purely high temp wire for all of my harnesses and sub harnesses. It's a bit stiffer, but who cares when it's not going to melt if it touches the exhaust pipe for a short time. I've hit my solder iron set to around 300c on the insulation before and not have it melt. The wire I use lumps into the more generic rating of GXL which is common for car injector harnesses that are located right on top of the engines.

I could make you full pig tails to get you all new wires for your stator for a pretty reasonable price. I'd just need to know the longest wire length.

The only thing I'm not sure of is if your machine has a wet style alternator or not (bathed in oil). My wire is speced for oil resistance, doesn't say oil proof, not sure what the effects would be if it lived it's life in oil. I should message my wire supplier and see what they say and I suspect they would recommend another product of theirs. Stator rewire kits might be a fairly good product though, of course the rewire part of that is stator to harness, not rewinding the stator.

Anyway, congrats on finding the issue, that's one of those things that can't be seen over the internet lol. Now I wonder, did you test the OEM coil directly on it, or though the wire for the 14k+ reading? Pretty sure that should be your root cause of the no fire, just seems to match up perfectly.

[Tacky]

Yea, 18 gauge wire is the standard goto size. It can handle something like 12 or 15 amps for a short distance. There's wire sizing calcs out there to show limits etc, longest wire run is like 6ft and that's to a 5-10w tail light.

The thing that is really critical though is the wire insulation. Most generic wire will melt at a low temp, you need some good quality high temp wire like 105C rated. I personally use purely high temp wire for all of my harnesses and sub harnesses. It's a bit stiffer, but who cares when it's not going to melt if it touches the exhaust pipe for a short time. I've hit my solder iron set to around 300c on the insulation before and not have it melt. The wire I use lumps into the more generic rating of GXL which is common for car injector harnesses that are located right on top of the engines.

I could make you full pig tails to get you all new wires for your stator for a pretty reasonable price. I'd just need to know the longest wire length.

The only thing I'm not sure of is if your machine has a wet style alternator or not (bathed in oil). My wire is speced for oil resistance, doesn't say oil proof, not sure what the effects would be if it lived it's life in oil. I should message my wire supplier and see what they say and I suspect they would recommend another product of theirs. Stator rewire kits might be a fairly good product though, of course the rewire part of that is stator to harness, not rewinding the stator.

Anyway, congrats on finding the issue, that's one of those things that can't be seen over the internet lol. Now I wonder, did you test the OEM coil directly on it, or though the wire for the 14k+ reading? Pretty sure that should be your root cause of the no fire, just seems to match up perfectly.

Yes, I was lucky to find it, very hard thing to do, given its location, and amount of insulation, or sheave on it. The 14k reading was directly on the oem coil, removed from the trike. The 208 ohm readings were from the ricky stator coil off the trike directly on the coil, and after wiring in the new wire and installed on the trike. So I should be good to go. Think the distance for the 18 gauge wire is maybe 2 feet from the motor to the connection on the frame above the motor.

Yes the alternator is a wet setup or bathed in the crankcase oil on mine.

I may take you up on the harness. How much are we talking? Also what kinda adapter do you have to measure the voltage on the pulse generator, lighting coil, and exciter coil? I might be interested in that also.

Wish me luck gonna take a nap after a long shift at the firehouse, then get up and see if that 200x will crank after the repairs, and completing the wiring.

[ps2fixer]

The adapter is just called a Peak Voltage Adapter, here's a random ebay listing for one. If you're into electronics I can post a schematic for one too. Basic theory behind it is the AC power charges a capacitor though a Diode (takes the ac and makes it dc in a nut shell), and the multi meter reads the capacitor's DC voltage. There's a 0.7v drop from the diode for the reading, but it seems the service manuals just care about what the meter says instead of the real world number. Also it's worth mentioning that at kick start speed, it should be generating 100 or so volts, so probably not the best first electronics project (do as i say, not as I do lol).

The ebay listing looks like it isn't a mass produced unit, but looks to be fairly good quality yet, and it's the cheapest one on ebay, so if it works, can't really fault it. Personally would prefer standard probes instead of the clips, but they should work fine if you pull the insulator cover back for getting into the female bullet connector far enough to make contact. If it's built anything like the diagram I found, it should have a resister to discharge the capacitor slowly, so the voltage will drop when the engine isn't turning, might take a few kicks to get a good peak voltage reading.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DVA-DIRECT-...06-W:rk:2:pf:0

This is great for atv engines and such, but probably has no real other use. Like 120v AC is measured in RMS, the true peak voltage is more around 170v. I didn't do that with my home made tester, I cheated and used an AC power supply that drops it down to about 10v on my meter in AC mode (aka RMS) and the peak voltage was around 14v.

Oh interesting, the listing says the warranty is life time. Might have to pick one of them up just because of that and put that to the test lol.

For the wet alternator setup, I'll have to see if my wire is suitable for that application or not with my supplier. If it is, I can make the pig tails for $20 shipped and you solder and cut it to length as needed (all wires made at the 24in length). It's worth noting you'll need some flux to solder to the wires, they solder well, just the nature of soldering (unsure how experienced you are with that). If I have to buy special wire, I'll have to see how much it is and if I have the funds to stock the 5 different colors (6 if I grab yellow as well for like the 200s engines). I doubt the wire would be much more if they suggest something else, so I suspect $20-25 still. If I had a nice list of people that wanted these I could probably lower the price since I'd be making them more in a bulk setting.

Anyway, lets hear the update about the 200x running before you go buying the peak voltage adapter (unless you really want one anyway lol).

[Tacky]

ITS ALIVE......ITS ALIVE....

The wiring repair worked. After rewiring the harness from the excitier and lighting coil and making the connections, and soldering in what needed it, pulled the plug and checked for spark. Nice and blue. Sprayed some ether in the jug, and fired it over. Took a couple kicks but on kick 3 the motor came alive with the choke on full. Shut off the choke and let it run. Had to open the windows in the shop and let the smoke out from assembly. I had the idle high since in the directions it says to let the bike run over 2k rpms for the first 15 minutes to allow the cam to wear in according to web camshafts. So I let it run, it burned all the smoke off. I then tried the headlight, nice and bright on both low and high beam. It has never been that bright so the ricky stator lighting coil is doing its job well. I had forgotten how loud that cobra silencer....or lack of is. So after 30 to 35 minutes I tried to adjust the idle down by turning the idle screw. I came down about a turn or turn and a half. Thats where my next help is needed. When I turned down the screw the rpm's came down as it should, but in a very short adjustment I could not keep it running unless I kept my hand on the throttle with it idling where it should be. When you give it the throttle to bring the rpm's up, the rpms go up but when you let off it takes a second for the rpms to come back down, not quickly like my other quads. Kinda like their is a small delay where extra fuel is still being burned off. Their is no strong smell of fuel in the exhaust when its running, or popping from what i usually expect from a lean running machine. The needle is set in the middle position according to the book. The air adjusment screw is set on 2 turns out. I am running the stock pilot jet and 132.5 main jet, so what do I need to tweak to allow it to idle down low? Let me hear your thoughts.

[ps2fixer]

Carb tuning isn't my strongest point (I tune by ear, but can't really explain it). First thing I'd check is the cable routing and make sure the carb is physically closing fast. A binding cable would cause a similar issue.

Also if you adjust the idle screw down and it starts to lean out or starts wanting to die, it sounds like the pilot circuit might be plugged. That's how my 350x is right now, I can run it just fine using the choke to "tune" the mixture, but on it's own right around 2k it just falls on it's face and dies without the choke. Not exactly the same machine, but most carbs work more or less the same way.

Anyway, congrats on getting it running, I figured it would have spark now since the Ohm specs were good.

[Tacky]

Cable is good, pilot circuit is good, cleaned the hole thing myself. I was smelling my exhaust while it was running, and it smells oddly enough that its running a bit lean. Its hard to describe that, but compared to my other quads the smell more rich when running. So tomorrow I am gonna go to a bigger jet and see what happens, luckily I have a plastic container full of jets from both keihin hex heads and slot heads from doing my trx450s, xl600, polaris 500, and many others. Have 100 to 190 in 2.5 steps. So its a simple swap. I have about an hour on the engine running now so I am gonna readjust my valves they had a little tap to them. Other than that I believe I am getting close to the finish line. I did notice that when you switch on the headlight the rpms go down a little, can't remember if thats normal from my other atc's aince last time I rode one was 2002. However the jetting change should change that. Normally when I tune my carbs, I swap the jet, then go ride it and see if its lacking throughout the rpm range, thats usually a good indication since most of the time only true way is putting it on a dyno, however the only close one to me is atleast 4 to 6 hour drive one way. The heck with that. Carbs are usually easier to me than electrical, so I am in the clear.

[shortline10]

Fine tune the idle with the air fuel mixture screw , the stock # 40 jet should be sufficient , the main could be bumped up to a 115 - 120 depending on the mods to the motor .

[Tacky]

Fine tune the idle with the air fuel mixture screw , the stock # 40 jet should be sufficient , the main could be bumped up to a 115 - 120 depending on the mods to the motor .

I tried the air fuel screw, around 2 turns out. The motor is a 66mm overbore, wiesco 12.1 to 1 piston, web camshaft 214 profile cam, stock airbox, but K&n filter ngk r dr8es-l plug. Right now it has the cobra reverse megaphone on it.

I have a 130 main it right now, turns up well. Have the stock pilot in it also. I played with my 5 notches on my needle ended up second from the bottom is the smoothest transition from low to high.

Got tired, so gonna start back at it tomorrow, and see what happens..

[Tacky]

Well I think I got the idle figured out, and set, however I have a brief pause when going from idle to a rev and then when the throttle is released the rpms staying the same for a second or 2 before it goes back to idle. I am thinking its the needle setting, cause extra fuel to be burnt off during that time frame. Gonna try adjusting it and see if that makes a difference.

[ps2fixer]

There shouldn't be extra fuel to "burn off", it should be atomized, aka mixed in the air as more or less a light mist or to the point it's evaporated.

It almost sounds like you have an intake leak. With the engine idling, spray some fluid that's safe and see if the engine reacts in any way around the intake boot and carb. I think most people use carb clean for this since it should dry out and be clean, just keep in mind some carb clean's are flammable. Not sure how safe it will be for paint, the stock frame coatings are very resistant to this kind of stuff though. WD40 would probably work well to. I don't run into this much, just trying to recall what I've read on here, and what my dad has talked about on cars/trucks etc.

Might not be the problem, but atleast one thing to try to eliminate as a cause.

[Tacky]

Ok so what I did was makes sure i had free play in the cable. I snugged the cable up at the thumb throttle. Then went and adjusted the pilot screw out to about 3.5 turns. I moved the e clip to the middle setting on the needle and everything seems good to go. That fixed the lag in the rpm's going down. I did check for leaks everything is good and tight, no intake leaks. About ready for a test ride. Maybe tomorrow.