by Fast n Furious » Sat Nov 24, 2018 7:49 pm
Presumably........ when you say failing ..... you are referring to the LT coil?
The LT coil on a CDI stator is wound on a former with very fine copper wire. I can't remember the gauge of it but it has very little mechanical strength.
On production units, one end of the coil's connection is terminated to a ferrule on the plastic bobbin where the green ignition wire is also soldered.
The other end (earth), is welded to a tag on the stators laminate core. This connection is mechanically tight. The very fine wire is subject to the vibration stresses that Lambrettas are renowned for. As a result, the wire fractures. Naturally, it fractures where you can't inspect it.
When the engine is cold, they will usually run ok as this fractured wire maintains its electrical connection. As things expand and move with heat and vibration, you then experience these difficult to fathom running problems. Sometimes, they can just fail terminally, which makes it easier to diagnose.
You can check for LT coil breakdown by using a muliti-meter set on the circa 200Vac range. (An analogue meter works better here than a digital one. About £4 on fleabay)
Remove the headset top and connect one probe lead to the green ignition wire and the other to chassis.
Start the engine and it should read between 60Vac - 200ish Vac as you rev it out.
Tape the meter to the headset and go for a ride.
If the meter reading unexpectedly drops when your engine begins to splutter then you can blame the LT coil.
If the coil is goosed altogether, then you can expect to see little or no voltage when kick starting with the plug out.
They can be successfully repaired by installing a new LT coil.
I make an extra hole in the plastic base of the coil bobbin and insert a small solderable ferrule eye. The coil's earth wire is now soldered to the ferrule along with a separate earth wire which joins the coil termination point to the laminate earthing point. This secondary multi-stranded earthing wire now takes the brunt of the vibration and not the coil itself.
It's now getting common to use the Lukas style CDI, which gets its power from the lighting coils making the LT coil redundant, which is a good conversion if you can't be arsed to pull the stator apart.