Classic bikes need mechanic owners

This weekend, Jason and I went to Buck's County, Pennsylvania. River Road runs alongside the Delaware River, and we wanted to ride the stretch from Riegelsville to Milford, NJ.

We had to put Molly's front fender back on, since it was supposed to rain on the way back home. So, unfortunately, we left later than we wanted. (We were also out late the night before, and had a bit too much to drink.) By the time we got to the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan to head out onto Route 78, traffic was backed up for at least a half hour. Though it wasn't too hot outside, sitting still in traffic caused our engines to heat up quite a bit. Molly's temp gauge was almost in the red.

We didn't get to Riegelsville without further problems. In Bloomsbury, NJ, there's a Pilot Travel Center (my favorite gasoline stop). Jason likes to stop there, because it's a good place to rest after an hour on the highway. We picked up some sundries and geared up to ride a country road to Riegelsville, but then Molly wouldn't start. The battery was dead. Thinking about how the battery could have died while on the highway, I thought about possible symptoms. The engine was losing power then surging at high speeds. Before that we were sitting in stopped traffic while waiting to get through the Holland Tunnel. We had also tried to use carb cleaner, since the right side was backfiring when slowing down. I was sure it was because the right carburetor needed some degunking. I thought maybe the surging was a result of gunk getting stuck in the jet.

Maybe the carb cleaner was a bad idea. But that wouldn't be a reason why the battery would die so fast. Maybe a diode had burned out in the rectifier. In addition to a possible bad rectifier/charging system, we already knew one of the stator coils is bad. I hate being on the road with an old bike without the proper tools to troubleshoot problems.

At the Pilot, I said to Jason, "We need to push start her."

Just then, an angel at a gas pump yelled out, "You need a push start?"

At first, I didn't know what to think. I must have had a confused look on my face, because then he walked over with a smile and said, "You need to push start your bike? I had a CX500. They're great bikes." I think he was a local. His Jersey license plate said "Veteran," and he had a calm and stalwart demeanor. And he was a big guy. Well, bigger than Jason.

I put the clutch in 2nd, turned on the ignition, and in one run at about five mph with our veteran hero at the stern, I popped the clutch and pulled the throttle, and Molly started right up.

I didn't get his name. Wherever you are, Sir, thank you. People like you make me proud to be American. He was truly an angel that day.

We got to Riegelsville where we met up with family, and I put the battery on a trickle charger (which we take with us, because of the bad stator coil). The next morning, we packed up and headed down River Road. Gorgeous. And fun. It was much more fun to ride than Bear Mountain, because the route was much longer.

After some more family meetups, we decided to try to beat the rain. Well, we rode right into it. With the faulty firing, riding in the rain was not exciting. It was cold, we were wet, and Molly's power was getting worse. We were going so fast, though, I couldn't really listen to the engine with all the wind noise. I could only feel her lose power at high RPMs.

Several exits passed by, and each time one came up, I thought about getting off and drying off. But I really just wanted to get home. So we kept going.

Halfway there, the rain stopped. But Molly's ignition was even worse.

Then we reached the Holland Tunnel back toward the city. What a relief. For a minute.

At a traffic light just before reaching the toll booth, Molly stalled and wouldn't start. The battery was dead again. Jason and I pulled over to a side street and tried to push start her again, but she wouldn't take. We tried several times until Jason was too wiped out to push more. Fortunately, there was a shopping mall close by, so we took her battery and the trickle charger with us to charge while we got some food and a little rest.

With enough juice, we tried starting Molly again. The starter turned, but the cylinders would not ignite. Then we pulled out the spark plugs. The right side was covered in oil, and fuel had splashed up the sides of the plug. I didn't have a multimeter on me to check the connections and I forgot about touching the plugs to the cylinder to check for spark.

After replacing the right plug with a new one, we tried again. Nothing. I started thinking again about the symptoms. Obviously the battery wasn't charging. It could have been the rectifier. But then the ignition wasn't functioning either. The stator? Oh no.

Since it was getting late, we decided to leave Molly and head home through the tunnel. The parking lot to the Holland Motor Lodge was right there, and the manager was kind enough to let me park her overnight. In fact, he was so kind that later I looked up the hotel online and saw that it received an average of 4 out of 5 stars from hundreds of reviewers. So, side note, great place to stay. It's AAA and it's walking distance to public transportation, like the Manhattan Ferry and the New Jersey PATH train. And it has a parking lot, so you don't have to pay exorbitant Manhattan parking fees to enjoy the city. (Though, it is pretty easy to park a motorcycle in the city.)

The next day I went back to Molly with a fully charged battery, a multi-meter, a wire, electrical tape, penetrating cleaner, a bunch of tools, and a phone number for a motorcycle tow. I didn't have to look much to find that the phone number was the most important thing to have this time. I noticed that the right spark plug wire was loose. I pulled off the electrical tape that was on it to find out exactly why it was loose. Well, it wasn't just loose; it was broken. The plug wasn't getting any spark.

When we bought the bike, the seller mentioned that the carburetors needed cleaning, so we attributed the backfiring to dirty carbs. I never thought that it was the wires. It turns out the ignition system had two faulty connections between the CDI and the right spark plug. And when I checked the spark plug connector, there was no continuity at all.

Now, I did bring a wire along with the tools, so I theoretically could have done something McGyver to get the ignition to work. But unfortunately, that wasn't the only problem. I checked the stator coils. Another bad one. The engine was so hot that it melted the resin in the alternator. I had ridden Molly all weekend with one functioning stator coil. The ignition system drained the battery. I wasn't ready to ride with ghetto wiring and a failing alternator. The wire might have melted (shorted) and gotten me stuck inside the tunnel. Instead, I elected to call Tony of TLT Towing to get me home.

He came, and in one swift move, got the bike on his truck and drove us home.

Next step, fix the stator.

Electrical problems

Just about every motorcycle mechanic I talk to has one thing he prefers not to deal with: electrical systems. It's not necessarily because of the occasional shock or burn from being the ground receiver of an open circuit. (12 volts is nothing compared to the 240 coming out of a laundry machine outlet.) The bad part is the intermittent working and not-working of components. Or worse, an engine not working after virtually everything and the electrical has been checked.

The electrical system on a motorcycle is like a body's circulatory system. Blood pumps through the body from the heart-- like energy from a motor to the rest of the bike. The heart muscles contract because of signals from the brain-- like the ignition sending impulses to the motor which mix with fuel causing explosions in the engine. Like the body, which can lose power if loses blood, a motorcycle needs its electrical system in sound shape in order for everything else to operate well.

When Jason and I bought Molly, a 1981 Honda CX500c, the previous owner said he had to put her on a trickle charger every time he parked overnight or longer, or else she wouldn't start. A mechanic told him it was a bad rectifier. Bad doctor. The rectifier, as we checked, is in perfect working condition. Something else was wrong.

One thing that was wrong with Molly was that the circuits were not properly closed. Like a blood vessel, which is a continuous path through the body from the heart to body parts and back to the heart with a pit stop at the lungs, an electrical circuit runs from a power source (the battery) to the components and back to the power source with a pit stop at ground. Just as blood needs oxygen from the lungs to continue doing its job, electricity needs ground to fulfill its purpose. (If you look, you'll see that one of the terminals of your bike's battery is connected to ground. It could be the positive terminal or the negative depending on the model of the bike.) Molly's wires had open contacts; uninsulated copper "bleeding" power before reaching the bike's components. In electrical terms, her power was going straight to ground. This was why the previous owner could not leave the bike parked overnight without charging the battery. Her power was terminally bleeding. (hehe)

Electrical system rule #1: All complete circuits must go to ground.

Molly had incomplete circuits. Before power could reach components, energy was wasted via uninsulated copper touching other metal parts on the bike, or moisture in the air. A symptom of this was the dry battery acid sprayed all over the starter solenoid. (Fortunately, that still works.) To fix this, I used heat-shrink tubes made out of silicone, a rubbery polymer made from the natural element, silicon. The wires were cut, which were then run through pieces of tube long enough to cover the bare areas, and soldered. Then the tubes were placed over the bare copper and heated using a heat gun, causing the tubes to shrink around the copper, insulating it from moisture and power shorts.

Copper wires in circuits are covered with usually vinyl or silicone. Personally, I prefer silicone because it has a higher heat resistance than vinyl, and its base is silicon, not petroleum like vinyl. (Rid the need for oil! End the war!)

All circuits on a bike are grounded (attached to the bike frame). Take blinkers for example. Some bikes have blinkers with one wire coming out of them. That wire is to be connected to the power source. When it has only one wire, it means the part to which the blinker is attached acts as ground. Look at a motorcycle frame carefully, and you'll find that all a motorcycle's components are connected by metal. Even the battery has a line wired to the frame. The front forks are sometimes connected to the frame with metal parts which act as electrical conduits. Other times wires come from the front forks and connect to the same metal frame as the battery.

The real difficulty of repairing electrical systems on motorcycles is the sorting through the complexity of wires. It's kind of like taking all your blood vessels and figuring out which tube goes to what body part.

Try to solve the problem before spending too much money and spending a mechanic's time

A motorcycle is an isolated electrical system. When it all works correctly, the battery provides the energy to power an initial spark, which when mixed with gasoline, gets the motor running, which then causes the alternator rotor to turn, building up an electrical charge that is sent to the rest of the bike including the battery which then recharges. Turn off the ignition switch, the engine shuts down, lights go off, and the battery stops charging.

If a light doesn't work, its circuit is broken. Finding where it's broken can be a challenge, especially if you don't know all the parts within the circuit. This is where electrical diagrams come in handy. Even if you don't have the exact diagram for your particular model, it's possible to figure out the problem. Most motorcycles use different color wires for each circuit. So, if your headlamp's wire is blue, and you find a blue wire elsewhere on the bike, there a high probability that that blue wire is connected to the headlamp.

To find out where a light's circuit is broken, answer these questions:

1. Is the ignition switch on? If no, turn it on. If yes, go to 2.


2. Do other lights work? If no, charge your battery. If yes, go to 3.


3. Does the bulb have a broken filament, or is it burned out? If yes, replace it. If no, go to 4.


4. According to the wiring diagram, is the light directly connected to a fuse? If yes, go to 5, if no, go to 6.


5. Is the fuse broken? If yes, replace it. If no, go to 6.


6. Is the bulb connected to a power source and is it grounded?

If you notice, there's no step after 6. That's because even if you think the answer is "yes," it might not be. This leads to rule #2.

Electrical rule #2: Connections must be clean.

If you have an old bike, the connections probably need cleaning. All it takes is some fine sandpaper-- 220 grit is dandy-- and a little scouring. It doesn't have to be shiny. Just get as much dirt or corrosion off as you can.

In a perfect electrical world, wires would be uninterrupted, joined by a clean and solid soldering job. But since motorcycle parts are often replaced, wires must be able to disconnect in order to remove bike components. Some manufacturers use standard connectors that can be bought at electrical supply stores. But other companies make their own connectors. Whatever way wires are connected to each other and to components, the connections must be clean-- metal-to-metal. On my old Honda, if I have to replace connectors, I use standard blade connectors with silicon covers.

In the case of blinkers, as mentioned eight paragraphs in, ground might be the fixture itself. In that case, either a new fixture is needed or an extra wire connected to the bike frame. Just did that (added a wire) to Molly the other day to get her to pass inspection.

One day, maybe, I'll go into how parallel and series circuits work and how to make sure one circuit is insulated from the others. For now, I hope these two electrical rules help you in your quest to get your bike working: all circuits must be grounded, and all connections must be clean. Even though my blog is called "Learning to Ride," if you're bike is broke, you can't ride it. So, learning to fix it is learning to ride.