QuestionHello Wayne, I have a 1982 Yamaha Maxim. I have great spark from my from the left side. And about two sparks every fifty cranks on the right. I have replaced the C.D.I. box and the coils, as well as the plugs. The previous owner said he soldered a wire back together in the ignition coil, and it ran fine. It has since failed(sizzling sound) from excessive cranking. Could it be effecting my spark, or should I be looking elsewhere? Thank you for your time!
Answer
Hi Doug,
If you have one good coil try switching the
incoming small coil wires and see if you get spark or not.
If the right side wires still won't spark the good left side coil
then you know the problem is not neccessarily just
the right side coil.
In other words try to eliminate the right side coil
as a problem.
If you get no spark after switching coil input wires
then you are not getting power from the CDI or actually
TCI as it is a Transistor Controlled Ignition system.
The TCI unit depends on a pulse signal from the pickup
coils under the left engine cover.
These can be disconnected and checked with
a multimeter. They should read about 650 ohms.
The wires are black and gray and black and orange.
If the TCI unit receives no pulse from the right
side pickup coil then it will not send voltage
to your ignition coil.
Perhaps you can even switch the pickup wires
to verify if the right pickup coil is working or not.
If your left side spark is working well I suspect
either broken/poor connections on the right, bad right side pickup coil
or a bad ignition coil.
You should be able to eliminate the faulty component
by substituting the good components from the left
side temporarily. It will not run this way but you can
check for the faulty parts by just switching
the wires for a quick test.
Keep the battery fully charged when testing too.
Good luck!
Wayne S
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