TOPIC: Euopean Motorcycles of Pittsburgh - No More Lee K

Yeah, Don. That's what I don't like about the new stuff coming out of anywhere...Even Royal Enfield, would you believe. It's all black box stuff... You can't do a thing with it if it goes up the spout but put in a new (expensive!!!) black box to replace the one gone belly up. The old stuff, if the points got burned a bit, you could file 'em. Carbs you could clean, or adjust everything from the richness of the fuel mixture to the idle setting(s). New stuff about all you can do yourself is change the oil and air filters. As long as the black boxes work they're generally beautiful. When they don't, Blechhhhhh!

Hey Ralph: You like filing points? Haven't done that in about 30 years, and hope to never do it again!

I'm old school myself. I don't want to own a bike that will force me into a long term relationship with my dealer.

But I'm a fan of electronic ignition. In 200 thousand miles or so of riding bikes with electronic ignition, I have replaced two ignitors one pickup coil, and one ignition coil. Aside from occasional spark plug changes, no other maintenance required. Sure beats filing and gapping points and resetting ignition timing every couple of thousand miles.

Ya want really simple? My college room mate had an old sportster with a magneto that was always at full advance. He carried a wrench in his pocket to loosen the mag and give it a twist so that he could kickstart the beast without hurting himself. Maybe the good ol days weren't all that good. At least my old points-and-condensor brit bikes had centrifugal advance. I probably still have the degree wheel I used to time them.

Frank

It's not so much that I like filing points, but if something goes whacky with the ignition I know what to do about at least some of it--if it's a coil, condenser, plug, or whatever, at least it can be replaced or if burned points, they can be filed. But if something goes wrong with the bloody black box, all you can do is replace the thing generally for megabucks...whereas a points file once purchased for a couple of Washingtons can be used over and over and over again--IF need be. So I'm not voting for the fun of filing points (though I've saved my bum by doing so on several occasions with various bits of down equipment) but for the ability to do something when needed that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and requires a dealer to be within striking distance to alleviate a problem.

BTW, I love the bit about your Harley friend turning his magneto to retard its spark to kick start his bike! That's REAL old style technology...The magneto on the Farmall F-12 I had to crank to start when I was a kid was turned on/off/or on full advance with a lever on the lower right side of the tank back-plate. You always lifted it about 3/8" from full run to crank the engine, 'cause if you didn't you could lose your thumb if it was over the crank and it kicked back. Without the mag-twist, I'll bet that old Harley could send a person over the handlebars if it was kicked too slowly!

And an abacus is easier to repair than a calculator, but I'll take the calculator.

I agree that electronic ignition components can be expensive to replace when they break, but they break so rarely and require so little maintenance that I'd bet the average cost per mile of maintaining an electronic ignition is less than that of an old style points-and-condenser system.

Now here's something to ponder. I mentioned previously that I have had to replace a few electronic ignition components in bikes over about 200K miles. In about double that mileage in cars with electronic ignition I have had zero ignition failures. So why do car ignitions systems seem to be more reliable than bikes? Or have I just been unlucky with bikes and lucky with cars?

Frank

That's interesting--bikes' engines run at higher rpms than cars, and also generally run hotter though I should think that if the electronic items are not near enough to the engine to be affected by the heat (my R100RT's normal running heat, according 'Oak' Okesin of the Airheads club is about 220°) the engine heat wouldn't have anything to do with an electronic component going up the spout. I rather suspect that what sends them around the bend would either be the more concentrated general usage, OR some electronic fault like a higher voltage/amperage surge that fries something. Black boxes being what they are, unless you're the electronic engineer who designed one of them, or had a schematic of what is in one, one can only guess as to what they contain, though the input(s)/output(s) can be checked if one has the specs for such things. But for my old (and getting older) brain, at this point that is beyond me, and I much prefer to let a tech deal with such stuff if need be...a good Tech, like John Rupert @ European.