Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech My bike is falling apart (electrical and chain)

I think these bikes are great, you can do a lot with the engines. They just have electrical problems, ****** would we want it any other way. The old ones had problems. I just think it is a retro thing we are after anyway. So we have it in a first class way

Jeezus Friar John, we're going to have to change your screen name to "Job" after this week! I hope things take a turn for the better soon.

Yeah, and today I found out I had a cracked tooth requiring a crown. I just can't win.

Anyone have any idea why the factory tach would freak out while the bike is running down the highway smooth as glass?

Man, talk about a string of bad luck. It's gotta start getting better soon.... only way is up sort of thing. Here's hoping!!!

cause its broken

OK...looking at a diagram...
The tach gets + signal from the ignitor (pin #15). It should be a Red wire.
The ground for the tach plug shares the ground for the starter button (#12 pin in the harness located in the headlight bucket for the right hand controls. I dont know if its the black of the white plug.). It also shares the ground for the ignitor (#2 pin) as well as the ground for the Oil pressure warning light and Neutral warning light. It also shares a ground position with the #1 pin on the alarm connector. It should be a Green wire with either a Red strip or Red dots (I think red stripe).
So…knowing that I would start checking thos items and their respective wires for shorts or opens.
•Didn’t you tap into something in the headlight bucket?
•Do you have anything tapped into the alarm harness?

What I dont know is what kind of voltage your tach should be getting. Maybe someone else can chime in on this.

My money's on an intermittent ground. You'll have to start under the "dash" and work your way back with your fancy new multimeter; set it on resistance and ground one probe then attach to the ground side of the tach connector and watch the meter while wiggling the leads.

Moe chiming in.

Cinnamon girl will not keep a low beam. Twice she has burnt the plug pin (headlight bucket) and once she totally turned to dust the low beam tab on the H4 bulb base. Sounds like I'll need to cut open the harness to fix that one.

Vera Lynn was having a turn off problem for years during idle. very seldom and not annoying enough to give a dern. Except for the following which goes sumthin like this "Internal Audits have uncovered a potential problem with ignitors for the Bonneville America. The Vin range was 139158 through 148655. The problem manifest itself with intermittent engine stalling. The recommended solutions were to 1. adjust the idle carbon dioxide levels, 2. adjust the carby balance, and 3. check for manifold air leaks (break the bolts free and re-torque to 12Nm). When the solutions didn't work, Triumph said the dealers should replace the ignitor" So Triumph was aware of bad ignitors. If your motorsickle falls within the VIN range above Triumph would be better served to replace the ignitors than to loose face. Vera Lynn: 143035 Cinnamon Girl: 146254 Yes I have two that fall within the VIN range and one that is and has been exhibiting the symptoms Triumph herself secretly/internally admits to. Vera Lynn has had her manifolds retorqued and the carbs are balanced any time I adj the valves or mess with the carbs. The idle CO level has not been analyzed but really, reading the plugs will tell ya if the jetting is close enough.

Ron, I too am sick and tired of corporate hush hushing the ignitor problems. Supposedly corporate had removed all the remaining problematic ignitors and the entire remaining lot was not used after VIN # 148655. Really? Well let's recall the service recommendation for resetting the hals gap to the narrow side of the original published range. What is it supposed to be now? .8mm? With the old range being from 1.0 to .8mm. That was published much later than the aforementioned tech bulletin.

Back to the Dame:
In the last 9 months Vera Lynn would hiccup on her carb idle circuits while underway. I cleaned her carbs, and the problem remained. I pulled her carbs and this time cleaned them totally, i.e., carb secondaries too. That seemed to make matter worse. I am hoping I didn't seat the diaphragms correctly, but you know what? her hiccups turned into the engine not firing and necessitated the fabled, "turn the ignition key off, then on" after which she fires right up. I won't be dealing with her problems further until I return from NH & VA/NC, as I will be swapping parts between bikes and don't want to upset Cinnamon Girl too much right now.

Vera Lynn also has had for years, an issue with her safety circuit: I cannot fire her while in gear, clutch lever pulled in and sidestand up. Trouble shooting I have verified the clutch lever plunger switch is good, the side stand switch will kill the engine if deployed while in gear, and finally the neutral light does shine. I know, I have to methodically test the entire circuit.

Living in Florida, when do I ever have the time to trouble shoot lectric gremlins? At least yous yanks have winter.



Aint' nuthin but the truth

Hmm, I have an '02 with VIN #150218. So far no issues. Fingers & toes crossed....

Quote:

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it's odd that so many different electrical problems happened in such a short succession.

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story of Blue's life, there moderatorbrother. Blue has not been on the road since the 2nd week in June.

had to read through all the nonsense to get
to the heart of the thread. jeepers.

your regulator/rectifer might be shot.
have you check the voltage system?
battery output at idle and increasing RPMs?
my tach did the same thing -- with the wild cutting out
freaky sh!t.
kept me from doing my big trip this summer .

trouble shooting all kinds of things now.
i'll help with any info i come up with.

Well, I just went through the whole voltage testing, bad battery scenario. It appears to be charging properly but it's too much of a coincidence that this all happened just after that did.

Just ran across this interesting little guide. Nothing new, really, but interesting. Never thought about hand control wiring and switches going bad. Probably not my problem but you never know.

http://www.knucklebusterinc.com/features/2009/07/24/motorcycle-wiring/

Not a bad little article. Too bad you can't wait for winter to go through all of this. Guess you're not riding to Spokane this weekend.

John,
I have your solution...
follow these steps:
1) remove three screws holding dash bezel in palace.
2) unlug any connections you have have.
3) unscrew the bolt holoding the tach in place.
4) pop the tach out of the bezel.
5) dig thru your boxes of Triumph stuff and find the OEM plastic cover.
6) re-install plastic cover (make sure ot fits so the logo is correctly positioned).
7) re-install dash bezel.
8) ride bike and test.

A positive result would be that you dont see the tach needle jumping around.

A negative result would be your chain breaking or bike ceasing to run in some other manner.

A side effect may be a 136 hp dyno run.

Glad I could help you out there buddy

Man, you just don't know when to effing quit, do ya?

Hey...I gave some great info a few posts ago...I was sitting here thinking about what else it might be and had the "if it wasnt there you wouldnt know" thought and figured Id post it.
As a matter of fact...Im going to the garage and see if I can get you a voltage reading for the tach.

So just laugh...cause you know it was funny!

I'm not laughing. So just STFU.

Oh, and, cue Keith...

Keith is toking...but heres some more info:
Tach connections:
Red – 12 volt, ties into Neutral light and Oil Pressure light positive. (voltage varies between about 11 and 13 volts DC)
Green/Red – AC voltage and comes directly from pin 15 of the igniter, nothing else on this circuit. (at 1000rpm = @ 6.2, 2000rpm = @ 7.2, 3000rpm = @ 7.5, 4000rpm = @ 7.6).
Brown -ground
Red/Blue – 12 volt, ties into pin 6 (light switch), speedo lights, pin 5 of accessory light connector, then into pin 1 of the ignition switch. (voltage varies between 11 and 13 volts DC).
Purple – not used with tach, clock only.

After looking at the Haynes manual (in color as opposed to the Triumph manual I have in B&W) I am noticing that the Tach is tied into the following via the Red/Blue wire: Light switch, Speedo lights, Acc light connector (pin 5). Got anything tapped in here?
Also, via the Green/Red wire to: Carb Evap system, both carb heaters and both coils. Now that should only be DC voltage which would either make the tach work or not. If there was a bad connection that could make it look like it was jumping.
Does the tach jump between RPM ranges (like if your cruising at 4000rpm…will it jump between 2000 and 4000 or is it more like from 0 to whatever rpm your doing)? If within a range, probably not this circuit. If between 0 and whatever, check it out.
If you test the RED wire you should test it at AC voltage and it should have a consistent increase with RPM. If you can hold it at an RPM level and see it fluctuates significantly then it’s signal from your igniter. Could be caused by a short or a break. If its a short it could be destroying the igniter. If its a break then no big deal. This is only a signal wire to make your tach read voltage.

There’s always the ground circuit again… Maybe there’s a loose ground but I would imagine you would see other signs such as dimming lights and such with items tied into the same circuits. I doubt this but you never know. If the ground was deteriorating maybe theres a wire with a break in it or corroded wires still there.

Theres also the possiblity of the tach being bad. Did Freedom have a Tach on his bike? If the bike gets transported to Spokane maybe you can borrow it to test. Heck if you can get that maybe you can get the igniter too...to test.

adding this for reference:

Sorry I know this isnt my thread. What is the box with the line through it between the neg on the battery and the splice leading to pin 6 on the regulator rectifier plug.

Most likely and probably a single wire plug.

That is the connector that the dealer said I'm should ground out if my bike started dying again while riding. That circuit was "showing a resistance" causing the bike to think the kickstand was down, engaging the kill switch.

It is nice to read about other electrical problems.My bike has been down for almost 3 weeks. Have right now used up 30 15 amp fuses trying it figure it out.Disconectec kickstand and hook all 3 wires together. not that. Disconected igniter? fuse still good.
Loaded up igniter conn. with Dielectric grease and starts.Will take it for test ride. Hope fuse doesn't blow.
Bought 15 amp circuit breake at Orlandos toy store to but in so i can reset it Cheaper than fuses. Test ride

ARD, this is just a WAG but have you checked the speedo light hookup wire to see if it's chafed near the headlight bucket?

Not yet. Just blew 15 amp circuit breaker and 30 amp battery fuse.. got to buy more fuses.will check speedo cable when I get back. they talk about Lucas electrics. The triumph Gods are laughing

hey John....any news? Did you fix it?

Haven't had time. Now that my mom is all moved hopefully I can find the time to look at it. Still waiting on chain and sprockets. Hoping they'll be here by the weekend.

Not really intending to throw fuel on the fire here but my electrical problems are widely documented. I've replaced 3 coils, pick up sensor on the crank, battery, etc. Even after this latest round of coil replacement Elvira is still running like crap. It hasn't completely shut off/died again but it still sputters, intermittently stalls and hickups. Now it has started doing it at the idle (in addition it running at speed). As much as I would dearly love to hit the road and put some serious miles under the tires I don't dare attempt it. For the last month (for risk mitigation purposes) I've been reduced to short trips close the house... just waiting for it to completely die.

My '05 has performed well, not even a hiccup in 33,500 miles, you guys are making me nervous.

66000 miles and som minor issues only 2001 America

I made it to a bit over 42,000 before the electrical problems hit. Check all your connectors for corrosion and hit them with fresh dilectic grease.

Change your CDI/Ignitor

Why?