The Exhaust and Other Bits

Everything I have ever owned has an exhaust problem. I guess it must be me.

My lovely Motad 2 into 1 ended up with a problem at the end of last year and broke the rear mounting bracket. This was a huge disappointment as it wasn’t cheap and they are not made anymore.

I had a long think and did a bit of research and decided to go for the genuine Honda twin exhaust. It really isn’t that much more expensive than a copy and I thought the original thing must fit better. So I placed my order. A few days later a large funny shaped box arrived.

Once I got the engine rebuilt and back in the bike I offered up the new Honda exhaust and it was a perfect fit and just slid into place. I have to say there is a definite quality about Honda stuff.

Having got it on the bike I was now in a position to do a test fire up. I reset the valve clearance and timing chain tension. Popped the tank on, connected the fuel line. Added some petrol and checked I had oil in the engine – I’ve made that mistake before!

Battery reconnected and keys in. Cranked it over and nothing – not even a glimmer; no pop; no bang; nothing.

After a cup of tea and a bit of thought I went back to basics. Do we have a spark? No! Well that’s a clue then. Neither plug has a spark so it must be the ignition circuit. I took the tank off and checked the coil connections. The earth wire that connects to the coil bolt had broken. That’s obviously the problem so found a new connector. Cleaned the wire up and re-crimped a new connector on. Super confident I had solved the problem I put the tank AND seat back on ready to test fire and……..nothing. Checked the plug again and no sparks.

Another cup of tea and out came the Haynes manual (did I say how good these are). I sat with my camping chair, Haynes manual, multimeter and mug of tea. I thought the first thing to check was continuity between the sensor coils and the ignition coil. So I disconnected the bike battery and set my multimeter to resistance and checked from sensor coils (well actually the terminal block just above the crankcase) to the CDi unit. That was fine. I then checked from CDi to ignition coils. Didly! Infinite resistance. I pulled the terminal apart just under the ignition coils and it was well corroded. I gave it a really thorough clean with needle files and emery paper and tried again. Fleetingly I got something. I gave it even more of a thorough clean and applied some of that grease they use on car batteries that’s supposed to help with corrosion and stuff. Finally I got a reading. I put it back together with low confidence so balanced the tank on the bike and connected the fuel line. Reconnected the battery and just tested for a spark initially. Wow! We have a spark. A bit more enthusiastically I refitted the plugs and put the bolt back in the tank and pressed start. It instantly kicked into life and purred away. The engine sounded beautiful and no smoke.

Feeling very pleased with myself I switched off and packed everything away in the garage.

 

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