Been on the forum a couple of weeks now (great info btw!!), you may have seen my introduction post but thought I would kick off my project post as I am definitely going to be needing your help!
Bought myself an XJ400 a month or so ago that I wanted to give some love and bring back to life, seems it was imported from Japan in 2001 and then forgotten in a garage in 2009, milage was low (16k) and shares around 99% of the parts with the XJ600 so I thought it would be a perfect little project for building myself a nice runner for general riding and commute to work.
To start, heres the bike when it was advertised: (sorry for poor picture, should have slowed down and took a picture myself when I got it home!)
Once I had given it a decent cover of WD40 and stripped it down I found the fairing mounts at the front were FUBAR'd on the plastics, I'm a fan of the naked look so figured it would be good direction to take and replace the headlight and speedo as well, it had a kph speedo so would have just annoyed me if I didnt change it anyway.
after a quick strip I had her at this:
Now before I go any further with the strip down and clean I wanted to get her up and running and make sure she is ok internally, she rolled well and went in and out of gear ok so engine isnt seized, so I've replaced the oil filter, starter solenoid and starter motor and got to where I am today.....stuck.
Heres whats going on....when I put a new battery to her and tried to start I could hear the starter motor trying to do something but nothing happening in the engine, put my hand on it and could feel it definitely spinning, so I pulled the start out and (thanks to some forum searching) checked the starter clutch teeth, all fine.
I then pulled a spark plug and tried it against the frame.....nothing. checked if any voltage was reaching the spark plugs....nothing, checked the power to the coils, also nothing! :wallbash:
This is where it gets interesting...I think.....I then tried to trace the cables back from the coils and found myself at the black loom plug on the right under the seat (in the circled area below)
When I unplugged the black plug I noticed that the middle pin seemed a bit oxidised so I cleaned it up a bit and scratched it a little to make sure it was metal on metal, plugged it back in and tried the starter.....now rather than just the starter trying to start I get absolutely nothing....nada
This is where I need help please, do you think its possible that by cleaning the contacts in the plug it made some switch work / not work? The pin that I cleaned in the black was in the very middle on its own (all other contacts we're in pairs) I would put another photo up at the moment but I'm at work
I checked the clutch switch and 'looks' ok? (by look I pulled out the plug, checked for gunk and put it back in) tried starting with clutch pulled in/out, side stand down/up. Also plugged the dash back in and can confirm I have a good neutral light and the oil light shows when I press the starter button. (also my lights constantly on and cannot turn off, is this an XJ thing or because its an import??)
Really stumped me, went from having the starter wanting to work the bike to having it not want to do anything. Could it be that before I fixed the contact it was bypassing a safety switch, and now that its back the switch is saying 'dont start'?
Sorry for all of the information!
Scotty