Mech

Well first off, when you were checking the earths and saw a small voltage, how much voltage was it ? If it was a half a volt it's too much really. You need to find the bad earth connection. With a bad earth it's possible that when you spin the engine over by hand you might see a spark at the plug, and if you spin it over with the starter and the plug out the earth might be god enough to allow cranking and a small spark, but when the plug's in, and the starter's working hard, that bad earth could be enough to prevent the coil working properly. The air gap is preset and isn't likely to be your problem. All you need to check is that the trigger/pulse coil has the correct resistance, and that it puts out a small voltage when the engine is spinning over. It probably only puts out about one volt, and it only does it once per revolution and it's very brief. Most digital gauges won't pick that brief voltage up. It's best to use an old fashioned analogue gauge with a needle. You will see the needle jump. It won't be readable but as long as it jumps then you know the magnet or trigger plate on the rotor is attached and doing it's job. Even when the trigger coil has the right resistance, and should work fine, they won't do anything if the trigger plate has fallen off the rotor, or if there is a flake of rust or a small collection of metal dust accumulated on the trigger coil's core. A single flake of rust, if it bridges the gap between the core and the rotor is enough to short out the magnetic field and prevent the trigger from happening. You need to check the trigger coils resistance to be sure it doesn't have a break or short, and you also need to test it's putting out some small amount of voltage to be sure there's nothing mechanical, like a flake of rust, stopping it working.

Ha.. getting the quad going will make your week.. You need to check the resistance readings in the coil. You use an ohms gauge and measure between the two small wires for the primary winding, and then from the spark plug lead to one of the small wires for the secondary winding.

Atv, I posted a wiring diagram for the model with an eight wire cdi, did you see that ? If you connect the black wire with a white stripe (described as "Bl"), which comes from the cdi, to any black wire, it will kill the ignition.

According to the wiring diagram the black wires all go to earth, including the ones from the kill and main switches. When the switches are closed/turned to off, they connect the black earth wire to a wire that's black with a white stripe, to earth, and that kills the ignition. The black with white stripe comes from the cdi.

Yeah, for catching the brake fluid if you manage to get some out. But you've got to get the fluid pumping through before that.

The popping, if it's out the carb then it's running too lean. It sounds like too lean anyway from the description. Are you sure the cam timing is right ? Are you sure the valve clearance is right ? Those could cause it. Are you sure the spark plug is good, the right one, and set right ? That could cause it. Are you sure there is enough fuel getting into the carb ? Have you tried undoing the drain screw on the bottom of the carb and checking fuel keeps running out at a good rate even after the carb has drained ? Does it idle nicely ? Are you sure there are no air leaks into the inlet manifold ? Could the exhaust be blocked ?

Well if it has a de compressor then certainly check that's working. Other than that it might have a bad battery cable, or solenoid, or earth cable or connection. Cables can get bad connections where the wire goes into the terminal. If you have jumper leads try jumping straight from the battery negative to the starter or engine, preferably the starter because starters can have bad connections to the engine sometimes, Then use another jumper from the battery's positive to the starter's power terminal. That bypasses the earth connections and the cables and the start solenoid. If that works, try jumping one cable at a time.

Valve seals.. Possibly.. But I've never seen it. Rings though get sticky in their grooves, sometimes from sitting , or from bad oil and other things.. A change of oil and regular use nearly always make things improve.

It sounds to me like a weak starter you are describing. When you put your hand over the carb it can't suck air so doesn't have compression so there is little resistance to turning over. I presume it spins nicely enough with the pull or kick start, or if you turn the crank by hand ?

Well given it\s so intermittent I'd be suspecting a wiring problem. I'd be checking for good power supply to the ignition unit and the coil, and that they both had good earths. Since it got turned off and started again until you started to move it, I'd assume a wire just needs to move very slightly to loose power. Up around the steering head where the wires move a lot is a place they chafe through the insulation, and the other place where wires nearly always break is right at the end where they go into their metal terminal. They often break inside the insulation, and a bit of a wriggle sometimes makes they contact again, or, you feel the wire bends too easily because it's only the plastic holding it together.

You are right Mule, those are not a cdi, they are just like an old fashioned points and coil ignition system except the points have been replaced by a transistor and the ignition timing is calculated and adjusted in the ignition unit. The coil and ignition unit both run off the battery.

The master cylinder might bleed if you either take the hose off it and use your finger over the hole as a one way valve, or loosen the bleed nipple on the caliper and use your finger as a one way valve back there. Then put the hose back on and try bleeding it at the back wheel. It's also possible the piston s stuck down in the cylinder, in which case a bit of sharp tapping on the lever might free it, or you could blow air back up into it. To bleed the caliper I would also put my finger over the nipple as a one way valve until the fluid got to the nipple.

I think a resistance check of the coil is first thing... The book says primary resistance is 1.8-2.8 Ohms, and secondary is 10-16K ohms

A bit of sand down the spark plug hole will get the smoke back.. I'd guess that the regular use has been improving the ring operation day by day and you hadn't noticed.. till today.

So describe what happens ? Does it cut right out and stop, drone away trying to draw air and fuel, stutter like someone's flicking the switch on and off ? Does it do this sitting in neutral or only under load. Have you tried it with the headlights on? Does it rev higher with the light on ? Have you tried a new spark plug ? Have you checked the air-cleaner? Have you checked the exhaust isn't blocked ? When and how did this start ? Has it been sitting, were you riding it when it started, have you owned the bike for long ?

I couldn't see that link Params.. I think that if the ignition unit on your bike was playing up you would get no spark at all. That unit is only switching the power to the ignition coil on and off, it's not a cdi. It depends on a good full 12 volts to the coil and a good earth. I suspect you could put a headlight bulb in place of the coil and it should turn on and off as the engine turns over. If there is a full 12v getting to the coil, and a good earth, then when the unit switches the power off to the coil, the coil should make a good spark. If the spark is weak, I'm pretty sure it will be the coil or lead or cap, not the switching unit. You could test the coil by putting 12 volts through it momentarily and seeing if there is a spark at the instant you disconnect the 12 volts. If you connect one jumper to the coil, and then just tap the other jumper on the other low voltage terminal it should throw sparks.

Mule you should start a new thread.. Cut and paste from here and we'll try to get your problem sorted. And have you looked in the manual section on this site for a manual ? If you have a volt gauge then you can do a voltage drop test.. What it is, is you bridge the suspect switch, fuse, or wire with your volt gauge and if the wire or fuse or switch is good, and has low resistance, then the gauge will show no voltage while there is a load going through the fuse switch etc, but, if there was a dirty contact, some or all of the power would go through the volt gauge and show up as a voltage. To test a starter solenoid you bridge from one big terminal to the other big terminal with your volt gauge and it will conduct power through the gauge because the solenoids contacts are open.. Then when you press the start button the contacts should close and conduct all the power to the starter. While your finger's on the start button the volt gauge should read zero volts if the contacts are clean. In your case, to test that the full 12v is getting to the coil, you put the volt gauge from the battery positive to the coil's live wire. With the key on the gauge should show zero volts in theory, but in reality wires have some tiny amount of resistance and so you might see perhaps a quarter volt on the gauge. If it has more than a half a volt showing it's too much and there is some bad connection somewhere between the battery and the coil. You can test the earths the same way. To test the earth you really want to test it under starting load, so you would put the gauge from the battery's negative to the engine or starter body. With the starter not going you will see no voltage, but if you operate the starter and there was a bad connection, or a bad battery lead say, then when you operate the starter some power would go through the gauge to the earth and you would see a voltage. The advantage of the voltage drop test is that you are testing circuits with the load on them that they are designed to take. Just testing for a voltage with a gauge puts so little load on the circuit that it could have a bad connection/contact, but still have enough power getting through to run the gauge and show full voltage, but when we put the load on the voltage would drop low.

Ha.. Cloud the water ya bugga... They seem to think they need the 12v power and that it would stop it going without it, but then they describe the two windings that go to the cdi as "chargng/rotor direction coil", and, "pickup coil".. It's saying the big winding is for capacitor charging.. All the small coils are going to the rectifier/regulator and are for battery charging. Here's what it says in the trouble shooting section.. Procedure Check: 1.Fuse (main and ignition) 2.Battery 3.Spark plug 4.Ignition spark gap 5.Spark plug cap resistance 6.Ignition coil resistance 7.Engine stop switch 8.Main switch 9.Pickup coil resistance 10.Charging/rotor rotation direction detec- tion coil resistance 11.Wiring connection (Entire ignition system)

I think they are all AC Gw and guys. The AC windings, which is the big coil on the stator, charges the capacitor on them, the trigger coil fires it off, but they get turned on and off with the power from the key, and the 12v probably gets used in the advance control. The feed from the starter either retards the timing , or it might kill the first spark, for easy electric cranking. Some have two separate trigger coils, which, I have read, switches from one coil to the other for advance, but I suspect the second one is used to give a rev count for a calculation of timing advance inside the cdi. Whether one or two trigger coils, they all calculate the timing in the cdi unit, unlike the old trigger with a magnet going past which sufficed to give an automatic advance with rising revs in older systems. In the old systems we could wire in a twenty dollar cdi unit and once we'd figured which way to connect the charge AC so the capacitor charged fully, we just had to connect the trigger the right way to fire it off. The advance was provided by the magnets approaching the trigger coil at higher and higher speeds. If we wire a cheap cdi into a modern system with new trigger coil designs we don't get the automatic timing advance, and so run the risk of having the engine retarded and over heating badly. The cdi really has to have the tune built into it for the bike it's going on these days.

A quick look through the specs show they are almost identical except for the displacement, and the engine design. The 450 is a single over head cam and the 570 is a double overhead cam.. The 450 is almost certain to have a steeper power curve with more of it's power in a narrow range, and the 570 will have a wider flatter power band. If it was a two wheeler the difference on the road would be that the 570 could hold high revs comfortably for longer, and seem slightly less sporty to ride. The 450 would wind out into it's power band quickly, with the sensation of more power, but then make you feel like you wanted to change up a gear more often..

Well Mule, if you've changed all the individual components, surely it must be a wiring problem ? Have you used an ohm meter to check the continuity of all the wires ? Have you checked the power supply and the earth with a "voltage drop test" ? Just using an electrical gauge to check for 12 volts doesn't show up bad connections under load.. The voltage drop test checks how many volts are present under the load the circuit normally carries under operating conditions.

Honda have had flash (and problematical) dashes for a long time..

Another place that catches people out is the starter and earth cables can get bad connections between the wire and the terminal.. Because they get a big load they can be fine one start, then sort of blow the contact and be dead as.... I've seen it on cars trucks and bikes.. Good news about the spark..

Yeah I'd be checking the key.. you will have turned that turning it off.. Did you pull start it this morning or use the starter ?

Throw away alright Gw, and out-source.. And it's good for business, they make money on the parts and out-work, and have no responsibility for the work.. but.. it just entices them to send everything out, and to fit every part possible.. I can't stand it.. That and lying so they can charge to repair what they'd stuffed up.. It's why I worked for myself.. I prefer to be honest, and do a good job.