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The smoke is still inside.
Not sure how or why, but it's still there. 
OK, let's back up just a bit and go into story-telling mode for a bit.
On my way from Alabama to home, I came to Flori-duh, just north of Miami, to work on my son's 1000G, which was a bit hard to start. We had worked on it back at home, before he came down here in January. Did all the usual stuff: adjusted the valves, cleaned the carbs (it had been running well, so we just sprayed them out and installed new o-rings), checked the R/R, all that 'stuff'. Clean bill of health, we loaded it on his truck and he headed down here.
He called me a couple weeks ago to say that it was not starting very easily, but would run OK once it got going. Hard starting when cold usually means tight valves, but we had just gone through them. I figured 'what the heck, I'm close enough, I'll swing by on the way home'.
Then he mentioned that sometimes it will catch just as he lets off the starter button. OK, catching when you release the starter button usually indicates a weak battery that can't provide enough power, so the coils can't fire well enough when the starter is running. It's a relatively new battery.
Fast-forward to Saturday. Checked the valves, one was LOOSE, at about .007" (yes, I use INCH feelers
), another was tight at less than .0015", a third was was a tight .002, which is actually middle of the range. I have my shims with me, we replaced the three shims with what was necessary, all the valves are happy now.
We turned our attention to the carbs. Took them off, drained each one into a bowl so we could see the debris that came out, there was not enough to worry about. Took the float bowls off, looked at all the jets, they looked just fine. Checked the float heights, did a couple of minor tweaks, put the bowls back on.
Bike STILL would not start.
When we took the spark plugs out to do the valve adjustment (easier to turn the crank and mandatory, since I use the zip-tie method for removing shims), they looked pretty good. Just a little darker than perfect, but still very good. I put two of the plugs into their wires and laid them on the head, cranked the engine. Really not much of a spark, until I released the starter button, then there were one or two sparks as inertia kept the crank going for a bit.
Checked the voltage to the coils, it was less than half a volt different than battery voltage. I decided to check the voltage while cranking the bike. Keep in mind that I had jumper cables connected to my (non-running) van, knowing that we would be at this for a while. While pressing on the starter, the voltage dropped to LESS THAN THREE VOLTS.
My meter leads were in the coil connector and touching the engine. I decided to get another reading, but with the black meter lead connected to the battery, and I got about 10.5 volts. The difference was puzzling. It appeard to be a bad ground wire to the engine.
We decided to take the airbox off, so we could get to the ground wire on the back of the engine, just to make sure it was nice and tight. In the process, we disconnected the jumper cables from the van. While the cables were still connected to the bike battery, the positive wire touched the engine case. Yeah, it sparked a bit, as expected, BUT THE STARTER MOTOR TURNED.
The ground cable was tightly connected to the engine, so I followed it up to make sure it was tight at the battery. To my surprise, it was not connected to the battery, IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE STARTER SOLENOID. I followed the wire from the starter, IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY NEGATIVE TERMINAL.
I have always been under the impression that the starter will only spin one direction, evidently it also does that, regardless of which way electricity is going though it.
I have absolutely NO idea why this bike hasn't burned up. When the starter button was pushed, the solenoid was energizing the engine block through an 8-gauge wire. The engine is bolted rather solidly to the frame, which is also connected to the battery negative. To me, that is the recipe for a dramatic short-circuit, fireworks and all. Somehow, enough current got diverted to drive the starter motor, and it actually cranked the engine at a respectable, but not quilte full, speed. Since the block was getting 12 volts, there was nothing for the plugs to 'ground' to, so they weren't firing well at all.
We swapped the two wires back to their proper places, the bike roars to life almost quicker than you can get your thumb off the button now, as it should.
Still have a couple other minor issues to take care of before it's totally healthy, but they are very minor, compared to that puzzler.
Now for the BIG question: I know the two previous owners of this bike.
In their defense, we have had the bike for almost a year, and it has been doing quite well. What changed??
.
OK, let's back up just a bit and go into story-telling mode for a bit.
On my way from Alabama to home, I came to Flori-duh, just north of Miami, to work on my son's 1000G, which was a bit hard to start. We had worked on it back at home, before he came down here in January. Did all the usual stuff: adjusted the valves, cleaned the carbs (it had been running well, so we just sprayed them out and installed new o-rings), checked the R/R, all that 'stuff'. Clean bill of health, we loaded it on his truck and he headed down here.
He called me a couple weeks ago to say that it was not starting very easily, but would run OK once it got going. Hard starting when cold usually means tight valves, but we had just gone through them. I figured 'what the heck, I'm close enough, I'll swing by on the way home'.
Then he mentioned that sometimes it will catch just as he lets off the starter button. OK, catching when you release the starter button usually indicates a weak battery that can't provide enough power, so the coils can't fire well enough when the starter is running. It's a relatively new battery.
Fast-forward to Saturday. Checked the valves, one was LOOSE, at about .007" (yes, I use INCH feelers
), another was tight at less than .0015", a third was was a tight .002, which is actually middle of the range. I have my shims with me, we replaced the three shims with what was necessary, all the valves are happy now.We turned our attention to the carbs. Took them off, drained each one into a bowl so we could see the debris that came out, there was not enough to worry about. Took the float bowls off, looked at all the jets, they looked just fine. Checked the float heights, did a couple of minor tweaks, put the bowls back on.
Bike STILL would not start.
When we took the spark plugs out to do the valve adjustment (easier to turn the crank and mandatory, since I use the zip-tie method for removing shims), they looked pretty good. Just a little darker than perfect, but still very good. I put two of the plugs into their wires and laid them on the head, cranked the engine. Really not much of a spark, until I released the starter button, then there were one or two sparks as inertia kept the crank going for a bit.
Checked the voltage to the coils, it was less than half a volt different than battery voltage. I decided to check the voltage while cranking the bike. Keep in mind that I had jumper cables connected to my (non-running) van, knowing that we would be at this for a while. While pressing on the starter, the voltage dropped to LESS THAN THREE VOLTS.
My meter leads were in the coil connector and touching the engine. I decided to get another reading, but with the black meter lead connected to the battery, and I got about 10.5 volts. The difference was puzzling. It appeard to be a bad ground wire to the engine.We decided to take the airbox off, so we could get to the ground wire on the back of the engine, just to make sure it was nice and tight. In the process, we disconnected the jumper cables from the van. While the cables were still connected to the bike battery, the positive wire touched the engine case. Yeah, it sparked a bit, as expected, BUT THE STARTER MOTOR TURNED.
The ground cable was tightly connected to the engine, so I followed it up to make sure it was tight at the battery. To my surprise, it was not connected to the battery, IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE STARTER SOLENOID.
I followed the wire from the starter, IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY NEGATIVE TERMINAL. I have always been under the impression that the starter will only spin one direction, evidently it also does that, regardless of which way electricity is going though it.
I have absolutely NO idea why this bike hasn't burned up. When the starter button was pushed, the solenoid was energizing the engine block through an 8-gauge wire. The engine is bolted rather solidly to the frame, which is also connected to the battery negative. To me, that is the recipe for a dramatic short-circuit, fireworks and all. Somehow, enough current got diverted to drive the starter motor, and it actually cranked the engine at a respectable, but not quilte full, speed. Since the block was getting 12 volts, there was nothing for the plugs to 'ground' to, so they weren't firing well at all.
We swapped the two wires back to their proper places, the bike roars to life almost quicker than you can get your thumb off the button now, as it should.
Still have a couple other minor issues to take care of before it's totally healthy, but they are very minor, compared to that puzzler.
Now for the BIG question: I know the two previous owners of this bike.
In their defense, we have had the bike for almost a year, and it has been doing quite well. What changed??
.
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