Hard starting, trouble idling, boyer failing?

Torontonian said:

Tell us about the puking please .
Are you using an old messed up fiberglass tank ?

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Well you see, i had not eaten today so the consistency was mostly…….

No my 850 has a steel tank. My 750 s is glass but it’s fine for now.

I haven't ridden my Norton for a four months (wife health problems) and this morning we had our annual kick start only bike run and at 7:30 am went to start the Norton, there was still some oil in the tank, was down a little so started to kick it over with no luck at all after about 8 kicks, so I undone the drain plug and there it was more oil in the sump than what I thought, after draining and putting back in the oil tank it fired up on second kick, 200mile ride it fired up first kick every time and ran great didn't miss a beat all morning, was a great day out.
When kicking your Norton is there any sign of it trying to fire, check the simple things first, but I be looking at the pilot jet after looking at the rest, spraying the pilot hole won't fix it if it clogged the wire trick is the only way to unblock it, then the spray, I never had the broken wire at the pick-up with my old boyar but it does happen.
It don't have to sit for the pilot jet to block it can build up over time even riding the Norton as it did for me a long time ago and even then took me 2 carb pull downs before I got it unblocked with the wire trick, mine was the left carb but it kept firing on one cylinder at the time of blockage.

Ashley

Just passing this useless tidbit along...

The TriSpark gives notice before it fails in the real world. It'll keep misfiring abundantly until it finally poops its pants.

Never had a Boyer fail so clueless about what that is like.

I just had a 2017 dated Boyer analog Mk.3 go intermittent in the worst possible way: it lets you ride for about 20 minutes and turns off just like someone reached over and turned off the ignition. Pulling the plugs shows it sparking on power off but not from the stator signals. wait about half an hour to an hour and it's back in action. The longer you wait, the longer it seems to work the next time. I've checked everything else, swapped coils, stator, redid stator wire connections and finally swapping out the box fixed it.

hhh said:

I just had a 2017 dated Boyer analog Mk.3 go intermittent in the worst possible way: it lets you ride for about 20 minutes and turns off just like someone reached over and turned off the ignition. Pulling the plugs shows it sparking on power off but not from the stator signals. wait about half an hour to an hour and it's back in action. The longer you wait, the longer it seems to work the next time. I've checked everything else, swapped coils, stator, redid stator wire connections and finally swapping out the box fixed it.

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I'm not there , but I bet it was the box connectors oxidizing , causing your intermittent circuit . . The Boyer box itself either works or it doesn't .
If you suspect the older box you can send it to Walridge Motors , Mike has a bench test for it , free .

I'd have to say connector oxidation is highly unlikely in this case because I inspected all the connectors, they're shiny new as the 2017 box was NOS, bypassed power and ground straight to the battery, and had them in and out several times with quality contact cleaner applied and all checked for physically intact crimps.

It repeated the same behaviour several times, and each time I pulled out my multimeter (don't leave home without it) and pulled the stator wires at the box to measure for 130 ohms which always passed, as well as a few hundred mV signal on kick and stuffed them back in again. If it were corrosion, I'd expect that would at least give me some spark on kick. But one time waiting half an hour gave my spark back and I was able to ride about a mile until it happened again. At that point, came back with fresh battery, no help.

Trucked it home. Next day, purred like a kitten first kick and then started running poorly. Took it up the street, high RPM was good, brought it back quickly and couldn't keep it idling in the driveway, died, back to no spark on kick. Took it out a third time a week later after double checking all the wiring again, disconnecting and reconnecting, tightening spade connectors etc., made it about 20 blocks in circles around my neighbourhood and had to push it home the last two blocks after it just stopped dead again. Ran out of steam at the end of the driveway, started first kick, rode it a few feet, and it died soon after, wouldn't restart. Later that day, spark again.

The repeatability gives evidence toward thermal failure, just like a coil, but an electrolytic inside the box could do something similar, or even a semiconductor. Fullminator on Britbike.com had it happen twice with two different Boyers.

Thanks for the Walridge tip; that's a good deal.

I had the same intermittent issue, it was a twin coil marked as 3.0 ohms but measured at 2.9 ohms that was causing the box to overheat. Swapping to a twin coil at 3.2 ohms fixed the problem.

kommando said:

I had the same intermittent issue, it was a twin coil marked as 3.0 ohms but measured at 2.9 ohms that was causing the box to overheat. Swapping to a twin coil at 3.2 ohms fixed the problem.

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Hard to believe that the 3.0 ohm figure Boyer quotes is so stringent that 3% less is problematic. Most people's ohmmeters couldn't resolve that, but I'll check again what I have. If Boyers are that touchy, they need to work on their dissipation design. Simply adding a flat plate of aluminum for a heat sink just inside the potting would probably do it. The wire and terminals between the dual coils probably adds 0.2 ohms at least, so with a single coil you have to be extra vigilant maybe.

hhh said:

Hard to believe that the 3.0 ohm figure Boyer quotes is so stringent that 3% less is problematic. Most people's ohmmeters couldn't resolve that, but I'll check again what I have. If Boyers are that touchy, they need to work on their dissipation design. Simply adding a flat plate of aluminum for a heat sink just inside the potting would probably do it. The wire and terminals between the dual coils probably adds 0.2 ohms at least, so with a single coil you have to be extra vigilant maybe.

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I don't know about Boyer, but the Tri-Spark absolute minimum is 3.0 ohms, and the absolute maximum is 5.0 ohms. When you consider that two Lucas coils in series are nominally 3.6 ohms and that's what the EIs were designed around it's not hard to understand that below 3.0 is TOO low.

When I use a dual-fire coil, I use a 4.0 ohm. This is the sweet spot. When I use individual coils, I ensure that they are between 1.6 an 2.0 ohms with an accurate meter. If a Lucas or compatible 6-volt coil is below 1.6 ohms, it is defective.

Substitution is another idea for troubleshooting too . I use substitution for questionable situations that become baffling . The known good part would reside in a ziplock until needed and labelled Known Good .
Send the unit to Walridge and if it fails the bench test you will know the truth . Then you can buy the MK1V version , which I run on the MK 111. Senses low battery voltage , but keeps on sparking .
Another idea ! Maybe the points area . Maybe the rotor pickup is running a bit elliptical on the cam end and the magnet pickups start touching as the motor heats up and things start to expand ?