Saturday, November 23, 2019

Suzuki Bandit 1200 — Tacho Update!

Resistance is indeed... futile.
As the previous post eluded to, the big Bandit's tachometer is now working only by hooking into the black/yellow coil-feed wire. This is how Suzuki did it on the later Bandits, and I'm having to do this because the later model CDI unit I bought doesn't run a feed to the tachometer. 
After joining the two wires together where the looms plug into the CDI unit, I initially thought my troubles were over, until i hit the 4,000 RPM range.
But then the needle went berserk, floating all over the rev range until you dropped the engine speed to four grand again.

I put this down to interference from the coils, and wondered whether a resistor inline with the tachometer might help.

There were various performance shops around the world selling such items for race cars so, with a bit of shopping around, found that a 10,000 ohm resistor was the way forward. Worth a punt for a few cents (unless you find the guy on eBay who was trying to sell them for $16 per resistor! 😐).

I bought a pack of 25 for $5.82 😀 (you never know when you might need another).



Saturday, November 2, 2019

Mk1 Suzuki Bandit 1200 — Tacho Not Working!

Comfort.
I think I've been cramped up on sports bikes too long, because I absolutely love the comfort of the GSF1200! Just this Sunday, after a bacon and egg roll and flat white at Cafe Metz, I headed up the Goat Track. For those not in the know, it's a cracking little road full of hairpin bends that takes you up to North Tamborine. Great fun, up or down, whatever bike. 
Fifty K's per hour is how fast I was going. Fifty K's! 
I was more mellow than a bong-induced mellow guy from Mellowford, and happy to cruise. Until six or seven bikes flew past me like I was on a pushbike!
I took chase, but gave up when the front got a bit iffy in one of the bends. All good, back to Sunday morning cruising.

So what's this thing like day-to-day?
Honestly, it's blown me away. It's quick when you want it, happy to mooch around at snail's pace, just a cracking allrounder. I'm fixing up little things as I go, and making a list of things I want to do.

One thing that was niggling me since getting this thing running was the rev-counter... it wasn't counting the revs. I had two secondhand CDI units, it didn't work on either. I had continuity from the tacho (black/red), back to the CDI. I had 12v and a good earth at the tacho itself. So the tacho must be faulty? One would assume so. But to assume... 

New Old Stock.
Secondhand rev-counters were going for around $150 on eBay, if you could find them. But then a NOS one came up for $300.