'82 450 Igniter - Repair, Replace, or Make?

[Guest]

My igniter has carked it, and of course I need to get something to make those coils fire the spark plugs.

So, I see I have four options available to me:

1 - Repair my existing one.
2 - Replace with a 30 year old second hand one.
3 - Replace with an aftermarket one.
4 - Make one.

I attempted to go option 1 last night, and got to here:



That plastic resin is tough stuff. To get to that point, I removed the outer casing with a chisel and I started on that resin with the chisel and hammer, but man it ain't gonna work.

I have seen you can soak it in lacquer thinner to get it off, but that's not a practical solution in my house unfortunately. My garage is part of the house downstairs and any fumes will go through the house. Already had that issue with cleaning the carbs and don't wanna tempt fate again.

Option 2 seems like a bit of a joke as the only one here in Aus on eBay is going for $190.

Option 3... well... is there such a thing as option 3? I haven't found anything yet.

Option 4 I'm thinking is the way to go. I have a schematic courtesy of Matchless and some German fellow, and I have been known to solder a thing or two in the past and I may even remember some electronics theory along the way. The big concern here is I need to get it registered once it's done, and I'm not sure if a roadworthy will pass a home made igniter or not.

So, given the above, does anyone else have any suggestions or recommendations or magical sources? I'd still honestly prefer option 1, but that resin is really gonna kill me...

 

[Nessism]

What about this? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1980...Accessories&hash=item43a5718b3a#ht_512wt_1165

If he won't ship to you I will. Drop me PM if you want to discuss.

Failing this, or finding similar, I'd go the make one route. The inspector blokes won't know the difference between the factory ignitor and an aftermarket you piece together.

 

[Steve]

The big concern here is I need to get it registered once it's done, and I'm not sure if a roadworthy will pass a home made igniter or not.

I see two options here:
1. Don't tell them it's home made. Is their primary concern that it's all original or that it works properly?

2. See if you can make your home made unit to fit inside the original shell to disquise it. If you don't tell, I won't either.

.

 

[Flaming Chainsaws]

What about this? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1980...Accessories&hash=item43a5718b3a#ht_512wt_1165

If he won't ship to you I will. Drop me PM if you want to discuss.

Failing this, or finding similar, I'd go the make one route. The inspector blokes won't know the difference between the factory ignitor and an aftermarket you piece together.

It looks like the seller will not ship outside the US. If I were you Pete, I'd take up Nessism's offer. I mean look at the listing! You get almost all of the wiring and ignition system! Let's hope that it works though.

 

[Guest]

What about this? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1980...Accessories&hash=item43a5718b3a#ht_512wt_1165

If he won't ship to you I will. Drop me PM if you want to discuss.

Failing this, or finding similar, I'd go the make one route. The inspector blokes won't know the difference between the factory ignitor and an aftermarket you piece together.

Hmmm that's definitely worth considering thanks Ed! I must've had the Australia only option ticked when I was looking last night.

Big question of course its whether it works or not, I'll have to ask a question as he doesn't really say in the auction...

I see two options here:
1. Don't tell them it's home made. Is their primary concern that it's all original or that it works properly?

2. See if you can make your home made unit to fit inside the original shell to disquise it. If you don't tell, I won't either.

.

Cheers Steve, although the possible issue is actually at a bike shop, which is where the safety certificate is issued initially. They will probably know the difference

And unfortunately I've had to destroy the casing to try to get inside the existing one... that's a pain.

It looks like the seller will not ship outside the US. If I were you Pete, I'd take up Nessism's offer. I mean look at the listing! You get almost all of the wiring and ignition system! Let's hope that it works though.

Yeah it looks good, but it doesn't really say whether it works or not. If it don't work, $50 down the tubes. I'll ask a question on the auction and see what he says.

 

[Nessism]

Hey Pete,

A US Postal Service Small Flat Rate box to Australia is less than $14 or a medium is $45. The auction says the parts are "fully functional", plus they look nice and clean so it's a good chance they came off a low mileage bike.

I''d go for it.

Let me know if you need my help.

 

[Guest]

Made a decision...

Made a decision...

Ok, I made a decision.

Firstly, Ed, thanks so much for your very generous offer, I really do appreciate the fact you're willing to help me out like that.

As it turns out, because he doesn't sell outside the US, I can't even ask a question via eBay, and I also can't purchase it via eBay and Paypal, so that would mean I would need you to do the whole deal for me. That doesn't sit well with me, so I'm going to pass on this one. If I could purchase it and communicate with him and ask him to ship it to you etc., then that would be a different story.

So, I am going to make one based on the schematic I have from the German guy via Matchless as it doesn't look overly complicated and should be relatively inexpensive. The most expensive part will probably be whatever weatherproof case I decide to put it in.

I will also persevere with digging into the guts of the OEM one so I can hopefully end up with a spare repaired one as well.

Once again Ed, thank you.

I think I'll keep this thread alive with making the new one to hopefully help future search results...

 

[rustybronco]

Pete,

You need to use heat and a pick (awl?) to remove the epoxy 'potting' the components in your ignitor.

secondly, does your bike use a mechanical advancer? if your bike uses an electronic advancer that is built into the ignitor; the schematic from matchless won't work. then your options would be 'as I see it' to (1) find a good used one (2) continue un-potting your ignitor and make a wiring diagram of all the components with values. (3) modify a different ignitor to work in place of yours (4) use a Dyna 2000?? (5) roll your own micro processor based system and write the code for it.

 

[Nessism]

The 450 has a mechanical advance so no worry there.

Matchless's GM HEI based ignitor seems like a good solution...although if it were me I'd just get that one off ebay. The HEI system is well regarded so it shouldn't be too much to expect it to fire a twin cylinder motorcycle.

 

[mike_of_bbg]

That's been done and documented a couple of times before, so a forum search might turn up some helpful tips. I think I've seen Mr. Matchless comment before that the GM HEI units might create a bit of heat: thus he emphasizes attaching the modules to a good heat sink.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I'll check on how that acetone is going this morning, and if it's still not getting anywhere I'll go back to the heat gun tonight.

As for the HEI module, I have that diagram from Matchless' site also.

I found this locally here for the princely sum of $9.95 plus postage. If he has two this could be the trick.

Any idea if these would be right? He doesn't list a model number or anything, but going by the description it sounds right:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/MODULES-HEI-...=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item336264bb67

Failing that, the other HEI models start getting dearer, which brings me back to soldering up my own.

The schematic for the ignitor from the German fellow via Matchless does include an option to run a chunky resistor to reduce the heat and load on the coils and power transistor also, which sounds like a good option to me.

The upside with the HEI option vs. soldering my own is that the HEI will be more robust (with lots of heatsink of course) as it's built for the task, whereas I'd have to try to take some measures to reduce the effects of vibration if I was to solder one up.

 

[mike_of_bbg]

Hmmm. The second picture looks like the GM HEI modules I've seen, the first does not. They honestly look like two different devices - the first pic has a 1x4 pin configuration while the second has slanted 2 x 2.

 

[bluewool]

Ok, I made a decision.


As it turns out, because he doesn't sell outside the US, I can't even ask a question via eBay, and I also can't purchase it via eBay and Paypal, so that would mean I would need you to do the whole deal for me. That doesn't sit well with me, so I'm going to pass on this one. If I could purchase it and communicate with him and ask him to ship it to you etc., then that would be a different story.

Change your primary address to a US one, for the purpose of contacting and bidding on US only items. I use this one: http://www.thelettercarrier.com/ because that where I have ALL my US purchases go... the address is at the bottom of the page.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm. The second picture looks like the GM HEI modules I've seen, the first does not. They honestly look like two different devices - the first pic has a 1x4 pin configuration while the second has slanted 2 x 2.

I thought it looked a bit odd, but the seller apparently has difficulty with responding to questions... still no reply yet to a simple "do you have more than one?" question, although I noticed they've managed to update the auction to say last one.

Change your primary address to a US one, for the purpose of contacting and bidding on US only items. I use this one: http://www.thelettercarrier.com/ because that where I have ALL my US purchases go... the address is at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for the heads up, but my wife tried a similar service once that then onships to Australia, however Paypal rejects the whole thing because the US addresses are not "verified", but there is no way that we could find to verify it... just gets all too difficult. I thought this online thing was supposed to make things easier...

 

[bluewool]

Thanks for the heads up, but my wife tried a similar service once that then onships to Australia, however Paypal rejects the whole thing because the US addresses are not "verified", but there is no way that we could find to verify it... just gets all too difficult. I thought this online thing was supposed to make things easier...

I wasn't suggesting that you actually ship it there, only use that address in your ebay profile as your primary address so you can contact the seller to see if he would ship to Nessism or whatever. Somehow that address works as a confirmed address for me. I was happily surprised when I realized that. It all seems rather moot at this point as you have decided to proceed in another direction. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Aaah I get ya' now! Bit slow at times is me

Anyways, the seller with the module replied that they have more, so I've asked for clarification on what model they are as they show two different photos and if they can add more quantity so that if they're suitable, I can buy two.

If this works out, I should be able to get this sorted for about $30 or so depending on the other bits and pieces I'll need.

I did keep going on using the heat gun to get the resin off the busted one tonight, and it's making a mess of the resin alright, but it's also making a bit of a mess of the capacitors too. Most of it is off now, so it's just the fiddly bits around the components now where I need to be ultra careful not to gouge the circuit board.

 

[Guest]

Rightio, so it starts... sort of anyway.

I ordered two of the GM HEI style modules off eBay yesterday, and I just ordered a bunch of stuff from Jaycar including resistors, diodes, spade connectors, and a heatsink.

Hopefully that should all arrive Tuesday or Wednesday and I should be able to start putting it all together.

I took a gamble on the heatsink size, and the style might not work to easily mount, but at $9.95 I felt it was worth the gamble given I was ordering the other stuff at the same time. It's 75mm x 105mm with fan style extrusions, which is what may make the mounting awkward, but I don't recall having anything else in the garage that would work.

 

[Guest]

Ok, I'm a little confused.

I'm editing the GM HEI diagram from Matchless to suit the 450, so the changes should be minimal, mainly relating to wire colours and only having two coils, so nothing ground breaking there.

However, there appears to be one big difference between the 1980 GS1000G and the 1982 GS450E in relation to the signal generator and ignitor.

On the GS1000G diagram, the only wires coming from the signal generator are the green and blue wires from the pickup coils.

On the GS450E diagram however, there are three wires, the brown and green/white from the pickup coils and also the black/white wire which is common to both coils.

In addition, the GS1000G ignitor's black/white wire is sent off to ground, whereas the GS450E ignitor's black/white is connected to the pickup coil common wire (black/white), and it has a separate ground wire.

Now, moving on to the GM HEI diagram (below), the pickup coils are simply strung in series between the modules. The common wire there between the coils does not appear to be grounded or anything. This matches with what the GS1000G wiring diagram shows also, that the common side of the coils is simply the common side, not grounded.

So, is it right then for the GS450E that I should simply leave the black/white wire from the pickup coils disconnected so it continues to just be a common wire for the two pickup coils to mimic the GS1000G's setup?

I'm unsure about this as the unverified GS450 ignitor schematic seems to imply that this common black/white wire from the pickup coils is grounded, and the German fellow's home made ignitor also shows the pickup coil having one side grounded.

I guess the other question is... is the GS1000G common wire actually grounded?

 

[Guest]

The 450 has a mechanical advance so no worry there.

Matchless's GM HEI based ignitor seems like a good solution...although if it were me I'd just get that one off ebay. The HEI system is well regarded so it shouldn't be too much to expect it to fire a twin cylinder motorcycle.

The other option you have is find an igniter for a different model and change the wiring around , I have done this with success in the past , as long as the unit you find is off a mechanical advance bike it should not matter. I put a ignitor from a 80 gs550L on to a 81 gs750e once and it worked fine just triced wire and then changed the connector around so it plugged in just like the original

 

[Guest]

The other option you have is find an igniter for a different model and change the wiring around , I have done this with success in the past , as long as the unit you find is off a mechanical advance bike it should not matter. I put a ignitor from a 80 gs550L on to a 81 gs750e once and it worked fine just triced wire and then changed the connector around so it plugged in just like the original

Yup, very true! The problem is finding one for a reasonable price locally here in Aus. There's not quite so many that show up as they do in the US unfortunately.