bike strands me after 10 minutes of riding

1up3down · Apr 9, 2013

the change in color should at the bend of the top electrode, look like it changes color right after the base

trying to remember, but I think this indicates a too advanced timing

also, your plug base ring should be nicely black, not wet and sooty, but blackish if idle jetting correct

the fact that yours shows virtually no color means too lean

did you get a chance to get a stroke light on the primary dial at a blip to 5000rpm should show about 32 if boyer, what yours show?

what position clip are your carb needles in, and what it air screw setting out from seated?

I don't know, great minds here, but those plugs don't look like timing and idle jetting is set right, to me anyway

mike996 · Apr 9, 2013

Regardless of the timing or fueling settings, the bike is able to run satisfactorily for 10 minutes so clearly neither the basic carb settings or ignition timing is causing the stoppage. They may or may not be optimum but they are not causing the problem. It really sounds like a fuel starvation issue though ignition coils have been known to do decidedly odd things - we worked on a car once that would quit during hard left turns. Turned out it was a faulty coil.

Try this...

Make sure the fuel filler cap is in the normal (closed) position and the fuel petcocks closed. Put a decent size container under the amal's float bowls and unscrew the drain bolt on the bottom of the bowls. Open the non-reserve petcock. Let the fuel drain until the container is full and observe that the fuel flows steadily with out any sudden stoppages/restarts until the container(s) is full. This will show if the entire fuel delivery system is working to the carburetors and is capable of supplying fuel for an extended period. If that worked with no incident, at least you have positively ruled out any problem with the fuel feed to the carbs. The plugs indicate that the floats/needles are working OK, otherwise the plugs would be fuel-fouled.

When it quit and you tried to restart it, did you happen to pull a plug, reconnect the lead, lay the plug on the engine and kick it through/watch to see if there was a spark? That would be a good thing to do next time and would demonstrate if there is a wiring/component problem though if there is no spark, more troubleshooting will be needed to identify the specific source of the problem.

What about the kill switch? I'd suggest you pull the tank and bypass the kill switch completely at least temporarily and see if the problem goes away.

One thing that occurs to me is the possibility that as the temperature of the engine goes up, wiring in proximity to the heat could be reacting to a poor connection based on the "working" of the connections due to the temp change. Breaking/cleaning/remaking all connections might be worthwhile.

If everything worked smoothly, life would be boring!

rpatton · Apr 9, 2013

How about you rig some temporary jumpers to power up the ignition?
It would be battery-fuse-ignition,
And battery ground to the ignition and coil grounds. Skip everything else.

Somebody mentioned that the Boyer trouble they had was always after the bike had been run for a while, and cleared up when the bike sat for a few minutes. I had the same symptoms with a crappy kill switch. When the insulation heats up from frayed strands, dirty contacts, cracked bullet sheetmetal held together by the plastic tube, ect, the now softened insulation lets it become an open short. It can happen anywhere in the wiring.

worntorn · Apr 9, 2013

On the fuel side, you might try pushing down one then the other carb tickler when the bike sputters, see if it roars back to life.
Here is a plug from a sweet running bike, taken out after a good run then short idle.

bike strands me after 10 minutes of riding

worntorn · Apr 9, 2013

Jst Did an Evlyn Wood spd rd (back to normal now) through this thread to see if anyone had mentioned checking for spark when the problem occurs.
I see Mike did just above. I'll add that you should look at the spark at home first to see if it is the same as out on the road when the problem hits.. A weak spark is no spark under compression, so it could still spark when looked at in the dead phase. If it appears comparatively weak that may be the problem. Of course if there is no spark then that definitely is the problem.

Glen

CanukNortonNut · Apr 9, 2013

kevbo82 said:
Power arch ignition with full old britts kit (coil,plugs,wires,etc) brand new amal premiers, new petcocks, "rebuilt" fuel lines. So i can start and ride the bike no problem, after about 10 minutes on the road it starts to sputter and stalls. at that point i can start the bike back up, and it will idle just fine, but as soon as i touch the throttle it sputters, backfires, and stalls.
Hi Kevbo
Looks like you are running a Power Arc Kit from Old Brits. Somehow Boyers are getting thrown in the mix here. :?
Are you using the optional advance curve (White Wire) with a switch??? Try setting it up with a switch and take the bike out and switch it over to the other advance curve or map. I might be out in left field here but I'm trying process of elimination. Did you ◦For positive grounded Commandos, connect the White wire to the same wire you connected the separate Black wire to in step 6 in the instructions, if you are not using a switch?
If it is not attached to anything then you are using the more aggressive map? The 10 min to half hour run sounds like a heat problem. Try test running the bike without the points cover on to see if the encoder in the points housing is overheating. Is there oil present in the point’s ignition housing and is it getting on the encoder? Do you have heat washers between the head and carburetor manifold? This is to rule out carburetor issues by having gas boiling in the float bowls of the Amals once the bike is up to operating temperatures?
Lets hear back.
Regards,
Thomas
CNN

ntst8 · Apr 9, 2013

I had a stop start experience on my ES2 at the weekend, may or may not be similar?
Ran fine for most of the day and then in the last 20 or 30 miles it suffered from what seemed like fuel starvation - tank was getting down but nowhere near empty.
Got home in float bowl emptying stop start distances it seemed.
I also found air in the fuel line, above an in line filter.
Monobloc carb so easy to pull the jet out on the side of the road and blow it through - no improvement.
On checking when i got home the float needle was sticking up. I have pulled things apart and no obvious gunge but have given all a serious clean.
I think it has been posted before but it would be interesting to know whether the viton tip is ethanol resistant, or whether earlier ones were of a lower grade than later ones?
I see that some grades of viton are not recommended for ethanol fuel and some are fine.

concours · Apr 10, 2013

kevbo82 said:
concours said:

What do the plugs look like? Black and sooty? Clean and near white?

Click to expand...

And did I miss a spark plug report?

your right i failed to respond! Had a hard time getting a decent shot. Pictures worth a few hundred words at least...

[/quote]
Ok, good, not grossly over fueling. It was mentioned, a test lead to power the ignition, bypassing all switches been tried?

Hobot · Apr 10, 2013

Timing appears a tad advanced as electrode hook thermal stain band should be about at the crook not the rim but otherwise looks pretty good plug to me and a tiny bit lean.

kevbo82 · Apr 10, 2013

All good advice folks, thanks so much! It's suppose to be scatter thunderstorms all day today, so i'm going to try and run the bike in the garage with a fan on it and see if i can replicate the problem at home and start checking voltages,spark,fuel, etc. Also sent an email to Fred at old britts this morning, i figure he probably knows more about a power arch on a norton than anyone else. Not to say it's the power arch and not something electrical. For the record, i cleaned EVERYTHING on the wiring harness, replaced any suspect bullets, and replaced all the connectors on the whole bike with brand new ones from british wiring including the 10 block under the tank. so of course thats probably where the problem is :wink:

DogT · Apr 10, 2013

First I would eliminate all the wiring with a dedicated wire from the battery to a fuse to ignition and another ground lead too, hot wire the thing like others have recommended. It will make a good troubleshooting harness anyhow. That will eliminate a wiring problem. Still sounds like fuel starvation to me too. Does it help to tickle or do you get any fuel with tickling when it's acting up?

I got mine out yesterday for a short run, started 2nd kick and ran fine the whole way. Last time it was out was late Oct last year. The grabby clutch seems to have cured itself too, maybe I was just paranoid last summer. It shifted and clutched fine, neutral was even easy to find. Now I need to get some Rotilla 15W40 in it, hopefully that will make for some easier cold starts than the VR-1 SAE50. It's a bit noisy until it warms up. Today is supposed to be 90. Nothing like these Virginia springs, 40 one week 90 the next. I did wipe the winters dust off it when I got it home.

Dave
69S

pete.v · Apr 10, 2013

How many volts DC in your stator putting out at the battery. Hook up trhe meter and run it up to 3000 or 3500rpm and take the reading.

gtsun · Apr 10, 2013

A while ago, ntst8 asked in a earlier post if the new Viton tips are ok in the ethonal gas and FWIW a friend & I did test try to them by putting a few in jars of gas after carefuly measuring them as best we could & what we found was that they did not seem to be changed by the gas in any way. Even after sitting for a year or more in sealed jars. We were also testing a couple types of tank sealers as well but that's another (to long) thread... There are a few types of Viton & I can't remember what they are but IIRC not all are good in modern gas. My friend talked to someone at Amal & got the impression they didn't use any specific type of Viton but at least according to our tests they got lucky & are using a type that seems ok.

kevbo82 · Apr 10, 2013

okay i think we learned something today. I had to drop my wife's car off for inspection, so i had the mechanic check the battery. 12.7 when he hooked it up, put a load on it and it came back to 12.5V. both mechanics agreed the battery isn't bad. So i put it back in and started the bike up, at idle i was getting 13.25V at the battery, at 3000-3500 RPM's i was seeing 13.5-13.7 volts. then i put the low beam headlight on, a few minutes later without me touching it the bike stopped running. Checked the battery, it was 12.05V. shut the headlight off, started it up, ran it for a bit (could use the throttle without a problem) checked the battery and it was up around 13V again, turned the low beam back on, dropped to around 12.5 (would still increase with RPM increase though) let it sit there with the low beam on and the meter hooked up and i just watched the voltage drop, got all the way down to 12.25 and i could hear the idle changing, and saw the red charge light come on in the headlight. To try and put a bigger load on, i turned the high beam on, and for some reason the voltage started going back up!? got to about 12.5V again so i turned the high beam off, the instant i turned that high beam switch off the bike died, and was very hard to try and start again. So should i be looking for some type of problem with the headlight, or is my stator not putting out enough juice to keep up with the demand of the ignition and headlight?

concours · Apr 10, 2013

kevbo82 said:
okay i think we learned something today. I had to drop my wife's car off for inspection, so i had the mechanic check the battery. 12.7 when he hooked it up, put a load on it and it came back to 12.5V. both mechanics agreed the battery isn't bad. So i put it back in and started the bike up, at idle i was getting 13.25V at the battery, at 3000-3500 RPM's i was seeing 13.5-13.7 volts. then i put the low beam headlight on, a few minutes later without me touching it the bike stopped running. Checked the battery, it was 12.05V. shut the headlight off, started it up, ran it for a bit (could use the throttle without a problem) checked the battery and it was up around 13V again, turned the low beam back on, dropped to around 12.5 (would still increase with RPM increase though) let it sit there with the low beam on and the meter hooked up and i just watched the voltage drop, got all the way down to 12.25 and i could hear the idle changing, and saw the red charge light come on in the headlight. To try and put a bigger load on, i turned the high beam on, and for some reason the voltage started going back up!? got to about 12.5V again so i turned the high beam off, the instant i turned that high beam switch off the bike died, and was very hard to try and start again. So should i be looking for some type of problem with the headlight, or is my stator not putting out enough juice to keep up with the demand of the ignition and headlight?

Low grade short in the switch/low beam circuit.

concours · Apr 10, 2013

But that's the voltage at the battery.. I suspect the voltage supply to the ignition is being pulled much lower. She should run FINE on twelve something volts.

DogT · Apr 10, 2013

That's why you need to hot wire it. There could be a high resistance switch or connector somewhere that's sucking the voltage to the ignition down and it could change over time/temperature. Monitor the input voltage at the coils and see what happens. Monitoring the battery will only tell you what's going on with the charging circuit. I would say your battery is good. I think you're getting close.

If you have a good VOM you should be able to check your switches/connections ohms with the battery disconnected. Or read the voltages directly across all the affected connectors/switches.

Dave
69S

kevbo82 · Apr 10, 2013

right now i put a toner on the blue/yellow wire at the ignition switch. I loose tone before i even get to the toners alligator clip on the switch. I pull the blue/yellow wire off the switch and i get tone back. i took the blue/yellow OFF the head light switch and still the same result. So to me (i'm not good at electrical crap) it seems the problem is somewhere in the blue/yellow wire between the ignition switch and headlight switch. I also pulled the other three wires off the ignition switch to make sure it wasn't one of them, only removing the blue/yellow gets me tone back. gonna pull the gas tank and snoop around

CanukNortonNut · Apr 10, 2013

Old Brits site claims that the Power Arc will still run as low as 6 volts. If your battery is still above 12v then the Ignition module should be sparking properly.
When the engine stalled did you pull the plug and hold it against the head to watch for spark while you kick it over? Check voltage at where you plugged in the power arc into the wiring harness to confirm voltage. Check for poor ground connections on wire harness to the frame. Check your kill switch button connections (I think someone else has already mentioned that).
I would call Fred at Old Brits and Pick his brains.
Regards
Thomas
CNN

kevbo82 · Apr 10, 2013

OK. checked everything in the headlight/switch. the only thing that looked strange, on the headlight switch, there are two unused connections, one of them was kinda bent, and when you turned the switch to on it was actually moving it and causing it to hit the inside of the headlight shell (ground) so i bent that back, bike has been running with the headlight on for about 15 mins now with no sign of a problem. Voltage still drops with headlight on to 12.29V but stays there at idle, and goes up with the revs. i also put the high beam, turn signal, and brake light on at the same time, voltage dropped all the way to 11.98 and still had no problems revving it up at that point. can't take it for a ride right now and see what really happens. i guess my dumb question is, is it OK/normal for the voltage to sit that low? I'm guessing since it idles all day with the head light on (will be higher and charging when actually riding) that it's OK there?

bike strands me after 10 minutes of riding

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