Quading

Well in my world I fix everthing, so when i got home and the Mrs told me about the boy round the corner being round AGAIN I finally went round.

He has a lot on that he wants me to do, 3 cars and 3 motorbikes and a quad.

I got the quad today.

Story goes, he bought it for his son, its a new quad and it doesn't work, never has for him.

So I got the job of sorting it.

So I asked the basics, is the fuel good, whats been done etc etc. I get the fresh fuel and blah blah blah.

So push the quad round to the house which is awkward as 2 tyres were flat and it was rolling over on them.

Pump up one of the front tyres but the rear one wouldn't pump up, easy started the tyre but it just deflated right away which was crap. Anyway on with the jump leads, nothing.

Notice some very dodgy wiring, the earth wiring has melted so I hold a cable to act as an earth whislt Steve_101 cranks it for me, nothing.

Pull the plug out, its soaked with fuel, dry it off with the blowtorch and it works, it runs for about 5 seconds then stops.

I pull the plug and check for spark, nothing then it slips out of my hand and rests further down the engine and theres sparks. So we have spark, however we'll come back to this.

I then add one of my new bling earths from the battery to try and get a bigger spark it works.

However the spark isn't there all the time. Depending on which way I hold it the plug won't fire.

Try easy start and all sorts but no joy, doesn't run again. So I decide enough for today, as I needed to see Neil to let him know what the score was. So I pack it away.

Neil and his brother pop round a few hours later as what the score is, I show them the dodgy loom and tell them it needs the loom repaired, he asks how much i give a price and he says ok.

So I pull it out again and get on with it. This is the rear fairing and seat off, the green wires are the earths and you can see the melted wires



To get the loom off I need to remove the front end and tank, note alarm. yes it has an alarm and it also has remote start!



It stripped of all panels and loom, look squite cool i think



panels



the loom



the earth main join, the long bit came from the front of the bike, 3 earth inputs went to it. The star bit fed off to the battery and the other systems like igniton, module and blah blah. There was also a ring terminal earth to the coil, this wire had totally burnt out



Some of the melted bits



Thsi is the original earth lead, the green wire went to the previous pics star cluster and the black wire goes to the starer



I repaired the loom, essentially I kept it as it was but used a much heavier gauge wire, the way it was all the wires were the same thin guage, this meant 3+ signals were feeding into the 1 thin wire!

Anyway my heavy gauge wiring was done properly, there is no splits in the wire, I made it a solid wire from the front of the quad to the battery itself. All wires were mechanically wrapped then soldered onto the main wire. I also added a side step chassis earth which mounts directly to the coil. With the multimeter the resistance was 0 ohms, down from 55!

The picture shows the battery end of the loom, the blue wires are the new earthing, the ring ont he right goes to the battery terminal, the one in the middle goes to the coil mounting point.



So I install the loom back in, try it and yep nothing.

Check the spark, the sparks is a million times better, its now a big blue crack instead of a white/blue pop. Its very impressive.

Also the engien cranks a lot faster as a result of the decent earthing.

So I pull the carb off as neil had mentioned something about fuel earlier, its clean, I clean it and blow it through but no issues.

Put it back on still nothing.

Theres fuel going in, theres compression and good compression but its not going. So all that leaves is the spark.

So pull the plug out again, a big massive spark, I'm holding the plug about 10mm away from the crankcase and its belting out big sparks.

Move the plug onto the case and whats this, the sparks gone, move it slightly and I can see it leaping from the earth eletrode.

The plugs obviously shorting out. I can't see anything with it but its been flooded several times so is done anyway. But it must be shorting out this no go.

So I need to get a plug for it, its not a normal plug its a tiny plug. Its an NGK CR7 HS, its tiny. Anyway I will try and get one tomorrow and hopefully with the decent coil output it'll fire right up.