Author Topic: xs1100 Trike (Read 61949 times)

KrisCarr · « **Reply #60 on:** March 12, 2019, 10:26:19 AM »

If you want you can drop the engine off with me and I can weld that up for you. Or you can come up one night and try playing with the spool gun yourself if you want to. Either way, that is very repairable.

Dennis · « **Reply #61 on:** March 12, 2019, 01:15:39 PM »

Quote from: KrisCarr on March 12, 2019, 10:26:19 AM

If you want you can drop the engine off with me and I can weld that up for you. Or you can come up one night and try playing with the spool gun yourself if you want to. Either way, that is very repairable.

Thanks for the offer. I am definitely going to repair this engine. For now I am forging ahead with the other fabrication. I have no false beliefs that this will be finished this season. There will come a time for a tear down, and that will include the engine.

Peace & Grease, Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #62 on:** March 18, 2019, 09:45:41 AM »

ITS A ROLLER !!

Saturday night. Could go dancing or to the movies, but I prefer garage time.

When I built the engine cradle last winter, I had to be careful with the front down tubes to make sure they were the same angle as the exhaust header and equally spaced between them. The photo doesn't quite show it, but I nailed it.

I need to figure some way of using this Wilwood brake reservoir/master cylinder, a brake lever, and foot pegs. I start by staring at it for hours.

This is starting to get really fun. Cobbled together an old set of handle bars and risers, mounted the carbs, pushed on some mufflers, and bolted on a headlight just for a mock up.

Peace and Grease, Dennis.

Dennis · « **Reply #63 on:** January 06, 2020, 04:50:13 PM »

Its been awhile since I've done anything with the trike. During riding season, my shop time is all about maintenance of the machines I'm currently riding. Working in my heated garage is best when its super shitty outside ? like yesterday.

First thing was to finish draining the oil, sealing it up and adding new oil. Part of the next steps will include testing the starter motor and ignition, and maybe even firing it up.

I want to temporarily wire in a total loss ignition system just to see if it will work. The first step is to separate out the components from the original wiring harness. Big mess will lots of leftovers.

I thought I'd start at the sparky end. I don't think these coils and cables are going to work. The coil leads are impregnated into the coils, so simply changing the leads is ? not simple. I have seen on the WWW how to carve open the coils and replace the wires. I may do that for a test. It seems easier to just order some after market coils now and work on the zillion other bits that have to be done.

Peace & Grease, Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #64 on:** January 13, 2020, 01:59:49 PM »

The XS1100 doesn't have a dipstick. You have to use the oil inspection window. Unfortunately, mine in opaque.

The capacity is 3.5 liters. I added 3 liters of 10/40 and 0.5 of diesel. I often will add some diesel to oil and run it a bit before changing all of the oil. Some mechanic told me years ago that fancy engine cleaner is just diesel.

I want to mock up and test the ignition, starter and charging systems.

I mounted the CDI box, voltage regulator/rectifier and the old fuse box to the frame and started running some wires.

When I was paring down the original harness, I generally cut wires to keep them as long as possible. I wish I would have been less enthusiastic last weekend, because now I have to redo this 4 prong connector (it was originally 5 prongs, but the blue one has to do with the neutral switch, and my pared down wiring diagram reports it is not necessary).

It is interesting in the photo above, that the wires coming from the pick up coils switch colours at this junction.

My new coils arrived today. Perfect timing. I will hit Chieftain for some cables ? when its warmer.

Peace & progress, Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #65 on:** January 17, 2020, 11:01:28 AM »

In my last post I showed the picture of my opaque oil inspection window. From this picture, it is oblong, not round.

There a numerous part suppliers that list the inspection window for the XS1100, but the all look like this; obviously round.

I was googling around, and saw that this round oil window is used on all sorts of Yamahas. That would make sense; why have a bunch of different windows. Possibly round on the inside and oblong on the outside? A quick search of XS1100 clutch cover pictures on the WWW confirms this.

Nice to know this part will be easy to get.

Peace and Grease, Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #66 on:** January 22, 2020, 04:49:15 PM »

The engine hasn't been turned over since ? forever. I bit of oil in the combustion chamber is wise.

I thought a visual inspection of the stator/rotor and the ignition censors (pick up coils) would be wise. They look brand new clean.

Can't imagine these were from the factory. There was obviously some modifications. The bike did have an aftermarket fairing and panniers when I got it.

In anticipation of a Garage Night with the brethren, I got most of the wiring mocked up before they arrived, and finished while they were present. It was great to share the moment when a 42 year old engine comes to life after sitting idle for so long.

It wasn't so great when 2 seconds later, oil was blasting out the crankcase breather hose. Threw down some rags, finished my beer and smoked my pipe. I can clean this up later. I am confident that I simply overfilled the oil.

Peace & Grease (oil), Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #67 on:** February 03, 2020, 05:56:24 PM »

Cleaned up the oil mess.

I wired the 2 litre pop bottle to the breather tube. I circulated the engine a whole bunch and only a drops came out. So far so good.

In anticipation of trying to run the engine again, I made this throttle attachment.

I also wired in and tested the starter relay switch. All the sparking with the screw driver directly on the relay was making me nervous, considering the spilled gasoline and ether I was using. I also want to see if the original Yamaha relay worked, because the after market ones I have used on other projects don't tolerate the vibration and abuse very well, and I have had one fail ? in the "on" position.

I was not able to get the engine running on my own. I will need at least one set of extra hands. I want to test the charging system before I move on from this electrical mock up.

Peace & Grease, Dennis

Dennis · « **Reply #68 on:** February 05, 2020, 11:18:01 AM »

With a little help from the brethren, we fired up the trike again last night.

Very quickly I had at least a litre of oil in my pop bottle.

Live and learn. The correct way to drain an XS1100 is to remove the drain plug. I previously "drained" the oil by only removing the oil filter. Brad removed the drain plug and ?

? had to put it back in before my oil drain pan over flowed. Oops.

We also checked the charging system, and its not working. Later Brad did some resistance tests and the stator is measuring 1.0 ohms (three phase = three tests) and it should be 0.4 ohms. Seems odd that all three phases of the stator would fail equally. I may do some more research first.

Peace & Grease, Dennis

Theo · « **Reply #69 on:** February 05, 2020, 12:22:20 PM »

Dennis, did you zero the ohm meter before doing the resistance tests? Most digital multimeters will show some resistance when turned on with the leads shorted. This value (could be anywhere from 0.3 - 0.8 ohms) will be added to the actual resistance of the component being tested, in this case, your stator windings. If your meter doesn't have a zero function, just note the reading with the test leads shorted together and deduct it from the reading when measuring the stator resistance. This will be your true stator resistance.

If you already know all of the above, ?

Ted

Dennis · « **Reply #70 on:** February 05, 2020, 05:52:48 PM »

Quote from: Theo on February 05, 2020, 12:22:20 PM

Dennis, did you zero the ohm meter before doing the resistance tests? Most digital multimeters will show some resistance when turned on with the leads shorted. This value (could be anywhere from 0.3 - 0.8 ohms) will be added to the actual resistance of the component being tested, in this case, your stator windings. If your meter doesn't have a zero function, just note the reading with the test leads shorted together and deduct it from the reading when measuring the stator resistance. This will be your true stator resistance.

If you already know all of the above, ?

Ted

Thank you Ted. I really wanted your input on this. No I did not "zero" my ohm meter, and I'm not sure if my Fluke gadget has that feature. I did see online reference to zeroing out the ohm meter however that was suggested for stators where the the acceptable range was really narrow and a precise measurement is needed. I'll check again.

fj1200 · « **Reply #71 on:** February 06, 2020, 12:12:20 AM »

I believe zeroing the meter only applies to analog and not digital meters.

Theo · « **Reply #72 on:** February 06, 2020, 08:43:47 AM »

That's true to some extent: not ALL digital meters can be zeroed - that's why I gave the direction on deducting the reading taken with test leads shorted from the reading taken from the component (stator winding) test.
I have six different multimeters in working condition; two analog (one of which is a high impedance type comparable to the digital units) and four digital ones. Of the digital units, two can zero out the ohms scale; two cannot. My Fluke meter is zeroed by pressing the "Rel ▲" button. Your Fluke meter may/may not have this function depending on what model it is.

Having said all that, I don't think the test results you got indicate any problem with the stator. The resistance is even from winding to winding and that 1 Ω resistance is not high enough to cause a no-charge condition. The problem likely lies elsewhere in the system. Hope this helps.

If you think I can help, let me know and I can drop over to assist testing the rest of the system.
What year is this engine/bike from?

T.

Dennis · « **Reply #73 on:** March 27, 2020, 12:47:34 PM »

Since I am using a Harley front end (including handlebars and controls), I needed to modify a Harley clutch cable to work.

I cut off the ferrule on one end and drilled out the cable outer tube so I could stuff the shortened piece back into it.