Wil it or won't it....

[TrophyHunter 15]

Problem: Completely random shut down. Also intermittent throttle bog off idle (enough to kill the engine sometimes)

Bike has been limped home by keeping the revs high (valve float?)

Done Wil lingly: Carb clean including jets (poked clean). Small white filter on fuel intake cleaned. Bowl drained on recurrance. In line filter installed.

Done yesterday: Valves adjusted (they were very tight - couldn't even get min feeler gauge in). Rear signals were missing and wires were touching (now isolated pending signal install). Found chafed wire near seat mount (electrical tape over bare area), treated Wil to some new plugs (properly gapped and installed) - old were a bit dark and had medium carbon buildup along electrode.

Started, ran "like a new bike" (prolly due to the proper valve adjustment & new plugs)....it did sound a lot healthier. Test ride, die. Wait a minute or two...fired up. Found bare wire-fixed, Test ride, die. Wait..started. Sometimes turn over, no start (not even trying - no spark). Some intermittent firing but not enough to start. Wait, starts.

DR650 Wiki

Forgot about the kick stand & clutch safety disconnect mod. PM'd Wil....said kick stand had been done (probably wouldn't hurt to recheck) I remembered I had to pull in the clutch & lift to get the bike to start (shoulda been a clue) so Wil said he was going to bypass the clutch safety.

So...still intermittent shut down and intermittent bog off idle.

Suggestions? Shop manual troubleshooting pointed toward the CDI. I suggested following every wire from start to finish looking for chafing (causing a short).

[ADV Bum 205]

Do the CDI.

[bikeslut 1]

The CDI is a trouble spot for some of the air cooled bikes (XRLs are notorious for it)

His bike actually died in a very precarious spot on CC trail 3, and I thought it might be the safety switches too... nothing... then fired up a second later without doing anything differently... it was weird; didn't cause a problem the rest of the day

I would not be surprised if it is both...

[jbw 0]

have you checked all grounds are secure?

checked for good fuel flow?

vacuum line hooked up to petcock(if it has a vacuum petcock)?

gas tank venting ok?

[TrophyHunter 15]

Yikes! Bikebandit has 'em for $450+.

Bike salvage yard time. Even untested at $50, it's a cheap roll of the dice comparatively.

FYI - some electrical parts were not secured (but they had spots to be) and were rattlin' around.

Any way to check a CDI before throwin' money at it?

Bum - in my heart I know you're right...just hate to see Wil saddled with this one.

[jbw 0]

I would get this managed before throwing new parts at it.

"FYI - some electrical parts were not secured (but they had spots to be) and were rattlin' around."

I think that a good course of action is to get the shop manual and test the electrical components individually. One way (probably the only way?) to test CDI would be to find another with a DR willing to swap CDI's for testing.

[starpal2 0]

as was said check all grounds and wires as there seems to be a history with that on that bike. the clymer manuals have all sorts of tests you can do for most of the electrical components but unfortunately theres no real way to check the cdi. what about the plug wire? make sure battery cables and connectors are tight and corrosion free. check maybe the neutral switch. perhaps the stop button. check all connectors and look for corrosion inside them. the clutch lever position switch. you could take a meter and start testing circuits to find whats not working when it goes out.

[TrophyHunter 15]

Thx for all the input.... Wil, are you reading all of this?

Electricity and I don't get along so past checking connections, testing is out for me. I do have a gadget in the garage with a dial, small screen and some probe thingy's tho. Not sure what it does.

I figured out how to work the ground clip, poke, see if it lights up tool.

Just sittin' crosslegged with my arms outstretched, thumbs forming a circle with the middle finger....

Oooooooooohm......

[kellymac530 0]

you said some of the electrical parts were loose and rattleing around but had spots to be anchored or attached....could be part of the problem...."well there's your problem"

often when electrical parts vibrate and rattle it can cause them to short out internally and it can be an intermitant problem. the advice to start testing all your components is good. key is to test them all now then to immediatly test them all once the bike shuts off. that will use the baseline you already established to know which has stopped.

i will tell you the place to find out the more common problems with a dr650 is at thumper talk in the dr forum. also you could try advrider in the thumpers forum.

i would not normally recommend anyone go to any other site than this fine place....but in this case there are more people at TT that ride dr650's than there are entire members here at sdar so that may be a better resource for this quiery...did i spell that right? querry?

[bikeslut 1]

The word you are looking for is "question"

Queery is something else entirely...not that there is anything wrong with that

[650hucker 0]

Your a queery

Thanks for the help so far...I have disconected all saftey switches, and COMPLETELY cleaned out/rebuild the carb, every little jet I could find got cleaned, and then I handed it over to my dad and he found one other small little tiny jet we've both never seen before in a carb...that was clogged, cleaned it, made it around the block and died about 40 ft from my house....

I think it is the CDI. We'll check out the wiring....

Tank vents fine...

That stall on trail 3 was the first time it happened, happened again about 2,500 miles later, now it's every 100 miles...

Really starting to get annoyed with this...engine is running better than ever though...Which means electrical.

Problem is progressively getting worse though. I'll give Vey's a call tomorrow to see what's up. And I'm throwing on a new tail light and signals, so while I'm doing that, I'll triple check the wires.

[starpal2 0]

Your a queery

Thanks for the help so far...I have disconected all saftey switches, and COMPLETELY cleaned out/rebuild the carb, every little jet I could find got cleaned, and then I handed it over to my dad and he found one other small little tiny jet we've both never seen before in a carb...that was clogged, cleaned it, made it around the block and died about 40 ft from my house....

I think it is the CDI. We'll check out the wiring....

Tank vents fine...

That stall on trail 3 was the first time it happened, happened again about 2,500 miles later, now it's every 100 miles...

Really starting to get annoyed with this...engine is running better than ever though...Which means electrical.

Problem is progressively getting worse though. I'll give Vey's a call tomorrow to see what's up. And I'm throwing on a new tail light and signals, so while I'm doing that, I'll triple check the wires.

if it is the cdi i would look around on ebay to try one on there for cheap.

[TrophyHunter 15]

Kellymac...good suggestion. Active question on a similar issue on the DR thread on ADV. I keep up on that one too.

[motorcyclenut 0]

It has been my experience that the CDI either works or is doesn't, no intermittent stuff.

My DR coughs and dies on occasion (usually just off idle), but not enough for me to want to find out why. It's a big air cooled single, sorta primitive by today's standards, so I live with it.

I would be interested to hear what happens in this case, and if Ken or Will wants to use my CDI as a donor, come get it.

[kellymac530 0]

The word you are looking for is "question"

Queery is something else entirely...not that there is anything wrong with that

looked it up the word is actually query and it implies more than just a question, but a search for answers....i still stand by my choice of the word query....not that theres anything wrong with that

and will, im not a query, your a query, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you like glue, neener neener neener

[Joliet 0]

It would be nice if you could plug your CDI into a bike that is working, should only take a minute and would take the guess work out of it. Who has a DR to volunteer?

[650hucker 0]

Where is the CDI?

[TrophyHunter 15]

4" x 3" (top) x 1" (deep) black plastic box immediately to the rear of the battery. Lays at about a 45 degree on top of the fender. 2 bolts hold it on. 2 large plugs go in the rear.

I'd do a donor but am a little leary (unlike Kellymac) about dropping a $450 part into a possible electrical malfunctioning bike. I just plain don't know enough about the electrical system to know if it can get damaged by other things not being right or if other things aren't right.

[hoss314 0]

In my experience a CDI was either working or not.......never intermittant.

but, not much experience with CDI issues (thank god)

[bikeslut 1]

Carguy to the white courtesy phone-

[kellymac530 0]

4" x 3" (top) x 1" (deep) black plastic box immediately to the rear of the battery. Lays at about a 45 degree on top of the fender. 2 bolts hold it on. 2 large plugs go in the rear.

I'd do a donor but am a little leary (unlike Kellymac) about dropping a $450 part into a possible electrical malfunctioning bike. I just plain don't know enough about the electrical system to know if it can get damaged by other things not being right or if other things aren't right.

that was motorcyclenut that suggested the donor bike/cdi.....not me i am leary of that also. if it is the cdi that is bad but it was caused by other electronic parts failures, it can ruin the donor cdi.

hoss...my experience is the oppesite with cdi units, as they get hot the cut out. once they cool they work again. i had that problem on my old kx500 race bike back in the early 90's. i ended up running mike kiedrowski's ignition box and it cleared it right up and had a better ignition curve programmed into it....dang that bike was scarry fast, completely built by dave miller at dmc and had jeff wards forks...wicked bike.

back to topic...the cdi unit is the electronic ignition control module and much of it is set in a silicone gel to protect it from vibration. at times they get hot, especially if there are other electronic components that are grounding out {like wils bare wires} and that starts to break down the gel which causes an intermitant cut out as it cycles in heat ranges....i would bet it is the cdi at this point, but make sure there are no other shorts or bad grounds, or bare wires or things like that....that way the new one wont have the same problem... :clapping:

[TrophyHunter 15]

Kellymac....it was a long distance reference (leary / query). :clapping:

Wil - based on the wisdom here, I'd get the tank & seat off along with the side panels and chase every wire start to finish. Then hit ebay and/or salvage yards for a CDI.

That would be MY next step, but there are folks a lot better in this area than I am.

[kellymac530 0]

im LEARY of being QUERY....not that there is anything wrong with that :clapping:

[Joliet 0]

I am not sure you guys are not getting the picture here. You take the questionable CDI and plug it into a bike you know is working to see if it runs or not. Then you know if the questionable CDI is bad or not and no one is risking their good CDI on a questionable bike. I don't even think you would have to remove the good CDI from the doner bike, just unplug it and plug in the other to see if it works.

[TrophyHunter 15]

wrote a whole response and then re-read your post Good Ken. Ahhhhhhh.

Now...will a bad CDI hurt a functioning bike? Mine is in pieces and unridable so I can't be the tester anyway, but still a question I have.