I'm getting pretty demoralized and hopeless. It's been about a week since my bike ran, and I've been working on it every day after I put the kids to bed.

First thing I did when I bought bike after starting it was power wash it, and it wouldn't start for a day after that. My brother-in-law who was the previous owner said that he got it wet once it wouldn't start for 4 days. I just never got the bike wet since and things were fine.

I tied it up some wiring on the left handlebar, and went to take a ride to my bike. Lights all came on like normal and it cranked fine, but it sounded like no spark at all. Pulled the spark plug boot, put a plug in it, and grounded it against the cylinder head and nothing. I've gone through four coils and no spark. I used my ohm meter on all the coils and they are good. I have 12.1v at both signal and power tab on the coil.

I checked the wires that run down by the pulley, and they seem fine up to the point they go inside the other housing (didn't pull that off because I just changed the oil). I cleaned up the engine ground down to bare metal just in case. I looked at the cdi, but I have no idea what I'm looking at or how to test it. I've checked almost all the plugs and wiring, and I don't see anything suspect. Otherwise, the bike acts completely like it does normally. All the lights and other functions are the same.

2011 RYCA bobber

Please help fellers!

If you know that the bike has a problem with getting wet, then that's the 1st place I'd start.

Check the connectors and make sure they're dry.
Being that there's no spark, I'd also check the timing sensor.
when you're cranking, what's the voltage on the battery?
if it drops below 10v, the TCI(CDI to some) will quit working.

Thanks Verslagen & justin_o_guy2 for your replies,

I'll check the voltage when cranking. I have been spraying WD40 in the connectors (still more to go) with no luck. The bike hasn't been wet since I washed it weeks ago though

How do I check the timing sensor? I'm going through the manual, but I don't see how.

Smith2 wrote on 09/23/22 at 15:50:22:


Thanks, I checked the resistance from the trigger and power tab to the spark plug boot and I get about 22k ohms. It's within spec, so I think it should be good. I appreciate the help!

I think I may have found something! This box was stuck to the connector really hard. When I finally pried it apart, both the box blades and the connector were all gross and corroded. I'm going to try to clean it up and see if it works. What is this thing if I need to replace it?

Bummer

The illustration doesn't show a spade at the upper right-hand corner, but your picture shows a spade in the upper right-hand corner.  I'm guessin that the spade in question is inactive.

So, assuming that the illustration agrees with your igniter unit, then the spade in location #6 is not used, or inactive.  Your spade at location #7 looks burnt.  I circled it in green.

See how that spade is black.  The factory service manual identifies spade #7 as connecting to the black wire that goes to the starter motor hot cable.  So that pin #7 gets hotted up when you run the starter.  That might be useful info.

Can you post a picture of the entire spade socket, a picture that shows all of your spade connectors on the igniter unit?

BTW, the fact that your #7 spade is black doesn't necessarily mean that it is burnt.  The black coloration could simply be corrosion or some other crud.  Your plan to clean the spades and their female counterparts is the way to go.  Very interested to hear how that works out, and I'm also very curious about what your full igniter socket looks like, exactly how many spades are in there, condition of all the spades, condition of the female connecter terminals, etc.

Good luck.