Besegen
Seaman
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2013
- Messages
- 57
Several days ago I posted about no spark issues in a rectifier wires post and at the end had gotten the boat fired up again. Well it quit getting spark again for the last four or five days. Today I went out with a homemade DVA adapter to attempt to run through the CDI troubleshoot. When I got to taking the black/yellow (stop) wire off the motor fired up so I thought I had it narrowed down and nearly whooped.
I went ahead and let it warm up then put the stop wire back on and set up to do compression tests which I'd been trying to get to for weeks but always been held up by it suddenly not firing again to warm up. The compression results were 112-113 in three cylinders and 115 in one. From what I've seen in other posts I guess I should be happy with that.
Anyway, when I hooked everything back up I went ahead and tried to start again with that stop wire still attached to the pack and it once again fired right up. When it runs, though, it still intermittently goes into phases of the sputtering with sporadic short fast surges here and there that I also have had before thinking it was fuel problems. Before it would run fine most of the time and do that just once in awhile. Now it seems to be sputtering and surging most of the time and just every once in awhile recovering and running fine for just a minute or two then back to long periods of the other.
I decided to go ahead with what I'd planned, shut it down and took the pack grounds loose and cleaned them. Fired it back up again and now it seemed to be running fine and I let it go for about fifteen minutes. Again I thought I had the problem beat so shut it down and bolted the power pack cover back on. Decided to fire it up one more time because I remembered I wanted to test to see if it was charging and now again it would not fire. Went back to do a spark check and was getting nothing. Took the cover off and took the stop wire loose again and still no spark this time so I decided to move on with the CDI continuity and DVA tests of the pack. I took the schematics for a DVA adapter from somewhere on here and attempted to build one. Only problem I had was I could not quite get the correct capacitor. I believe it called for a 22f 450V cap and the guy at the shop said they don't exist. He gave me a 20f 450V and said it would work. I don't know if that was the problem or not but I don't think it was working. I was working the brown wire to brown/yellow wire test and never got more than 25V on the meter.
I don't think it was working though because I was still not getting spark the first couple of times I tried with the adapter and then I broke a clip off of it. I put a new one on and went back to try again and the motor suddenly got spark this time and fired up and I still was reading only the 25V peak. So I gave it up with that.
I'd seen that it could also be done by taking the high reading of a straight voltage measurement and multiplying by (I think) 1.41, though it might not be as accurate as measuring. Is this true? Or do I just need to get my hands on a working adapter to have any hope of doing it? I did try to do this on the brown to brown/yellow wire test and only came up with 81 which would yield only 114.21V, which obviously is below the 150V plus spec. This measurement came while the motor was doing the sputtering around thing. I did notice too that when it gave that quick, short high rev surge every once in awhile, the meter would jump to about 220V then plunge back to the 81 or less with the sputtering.
I know this is an incomplete test but the weather took a turn for the worse so I had to quit here. I figure I need to know if that multiplying value will work for a reasonable DVA test or not or if I'm just wasting my time with it anyway.
Sure is getting aggravating having the thing get no spark, then I take something loose (rectifier once, stop wire once, ground once) and suddenly it gets spark and runs. Then I hook whatever it is back up but it still runs. So I think I got it then put everything back together and suddenly no spark again. And now I unhook what I did the first time to get spark and this time even that won't work.
My question is really right now about the doing the DVA test with that multiplier rather than an adapter. I thought I'd spell out the situation too though in case one of you experienced guys might see something in there that tells you something. I'm really suspicious of the power pack with it seeming to keep going from spark to no spark no matter what I'm messing with in or around it, but I'd like to get a reasonable test done first to be sure.
I went ahead and let it warm up then put the stop wire back on and set up to do compression tests which I'd been trying to get to for weeks but always been held up by it suddenly not firing again to warm up. The compression results were 112-113 in three cylinders and 115 in one. From what I've seen in other posts I guess I should be happy with that.
Anyway, when I hooked everything back up I went ahead and tried to start again with that stop wire still attached to the pack and it once again fired right up. When it runs, though, it still intermittently goes into phases of the sputtering with sporadic short fast surges here and there that I also have had before thinking it was fuel problems. Before it would run fine most of the time and do that just once in awhile. Now it seems to be sputtering and surging most of the time and just every once in awhile recovering and running fine for just a minute or two then back to long periods of the other.
I decided to go ahead with what I'd planned, shut it down and took the pack grounds loose and cleaned them. Fired it back up again and now it seemed to be running fine and I let it go for about fifteen minutes. Again I thought I had the problem beat so shut it down and bolted the power pack cover back on. Decided to fire it up one more time because I remembered I wanted to test to see if it was charging and now again it would not fire. Went back to do a spark check and was getting nothing. Took the cover off and took the stop wire loose again and still no spark this time so I decided to move on with the CDI continuity and DVA tests of the pack. I took the schematics for a DVA adapter from somewhere on here and attempted to build one. Only problem I had was I could not quite get the correct capacitor. I believe it called for a 22f 450V cap and the guy at the shop said they don't exist. He gave me a 20f 450V and said it would work. I don't know if that was the problem or not but I don't think it was working. I was working the brown wire to brown/yellow wire test and never got more than 25V on the meter.
I don't think it was working though because I was still not getting spark the first couple of times I tried with the adapter and then I broke a clip off of it. I put a new one on and went back to try again and the motor suddenly got spark this time and fired up and I still was reading only the 25V peak. So I gave it up with that.
I'd seen that it could also be done by taking the high reading of a straight voltage measurement and multiplying by (I think) 1.41, though it might not be as accurate as measuring. Is this true? Or do I just need to get my hands on a working adapter to have any hope of doing it? I did try to do this on the brown to brown/yellow wire test and only came up with 81 which would yield only 114.21V, which obviously is below the 150V plus spec. This measurement came while the motor was doing the sputtering around thing. I did notice too that when it gave that quick, short high rev surge every once in awhile, the meter would jump to about 220V then plunge back to the 81 or less with the sputtering.
I know this is an incomplete test but the weather took a turn for the worse so I had to quit here. I figure I need to know if that multiplying value will work for a reasonable DVA test or not or if I'm just wasting my time with it anyway.
Sure is getting aggravating having the thing get no spark, then I take something loose (rectifier once, stop wire once, ground once) and suddenly it gets spark and runs. Then I hook whatever it is back up but it still runs. So I think I got it then put everything back together and suddenly no spark again. And now I unhook what I did the first time to get spark and this time even that won't work.
My question is really right now about the doing the DVA test with that multiplier rather than an adapter. I thought I'd spell out the situation too though in case one of you experienced guys might see something in there that tells you something. I'm really suspicious of the power pack with it seeming to keep going from spark to no spark no matter what I'm messing with in or around it, but I'd like to get a reasonable test done first to be sure.
