Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Thanks burnt/vette! The first thing I did was check the plug against the jug to see if it arced. Nothing. Compression is fine, but not an issue for no spark.

The condition of the Spree is very poor (The throttle cable and rear brake cable siezed and the cables broke in half trying to get them to move to lube them), therefore the wiring would be suspect. That is why I am taking the time to understand the wiring and troubleshooting. Since I am doing a complete restore (first time I have even seen/touched a Spree), mostly to gain knowledge, I do not want to spend money on a CDI and come to find out its not that, then buy a coil, and it's not that either, only to find out a terminal or wire was fouled that I could have found by testing.

Like everyone working on these, there is a lot of money to spend on OEM replacement parts, just want to exhaust all avenues before spending the money (which I have no problem doing). I do have the time to tinker with it, so going the long way is OK to get the knowledge. And, it may help someone else, not likely, but maybe. Since this is a restore I was hoping to make sure it was capable of running prior to spending money/time to tear down, paint and reassemble, only to find that you need to replace the entire engine.

BTW I reviewed the electrical and see where you can bypass the alternator to power the components. (on my model its the yellow wire off the alternator that runs to the front components) At least I can test the lights, signals, guage lights, without it running. As well as put a test light from the yellow lead from the alternator and ground it to see if it produces light during cranking. Again I thinks its the CDI or the terminals at the CDI, based on this long diagnostic (thanks for your patience).

Also, vtcycles.com has used or aftermarket CDIs for $25 so I think I will just get one and use it, if it works great if not, it will be up on eBay.

Thanks again for all your help. I hope to have my project from teardown to rebuild posted in the next month or so.

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy, did you ever solve your problem, I have the EXACT same problem as you, except my spree runs. The battery is good but nothing electrical works, except the fuel guage. All the electrical used to work but I messed something up, because when my battery died, I had a 12V, 6 amp battery charger hooked up to the battery terminals (what a bone-head move that was), and the scooter lit up just as if the battery was good again, then I honked the horn and it beeped for half a second, then everything shut off. I've gotten the battery fixed since, but nothing electrical works on the bike. The bike runs fine, just no electrical. I checked the fuse and it looked fine to me, unless it is burnt at the ends that are hidden from the visible window, but I doubt it (I guess I should check continutiy on it) can someone help!!?!??!

Sounds like a bad ground, since everything went at once. Remove and clean the ground to chassis terminals. I'm sure Jeremy will be along soon...

BTW, you did check your fuse already, and cleaned up any corrosion there, right?

It sounds like you fried the light coil/charge coil on the stator and/or fried the regulator/restrictor.

With the bike running, probe the yellow and white wire from the stator with your volt meter, located under the rubber boot where all the wires connect. Careful!!! as these have some good volts coming through. Set the volt meter to AC, you should get a reading of 100-120V on the meter from either the white or yellow. If you are getting voltage there then move to the same wires by the regulator. Probe them there. They should be the same reading. No reading then wire is bad from stator to regulator. Then check the DC voltage at the battery terminals. If you are good from above and the reading here is less than 12V at half throttle your regulator is bad. If the reading here is +13V then the light coil could be bad, and charge coil is good which means the stator as a whole is bad. It could also point to a ground/positive wire that fried.

The easiest way to test for resistance/continuity on ground is to have the battery in the spree, then hook up one side of the voltmeter to the negative terminal and go and touch all the ground wires at the accessory. Anything over about 12 ohms means the wire is only able to deliver up to 1 amp of power. Smaller wires like lights only use .25-.5 amps so they would still be fine, when you get to 48 ohms then the lights will have trouble lighting. (Voltage/Resitance = Maximum AMPS) The starter uses about 4-5 amps so if you can start it the ground and power leads there are good to the starter.

My guess is when you hooked up the charger to the terminals you were fighting the regulator and stator and fried the electrical. 6 amps is a lot to go over small wires of a spree and the regulator.

Good luck and let me know.

Thanks for the help! work has been really busy lately so I only got to look at my scoot this afternoon, so I took off my side covers and exposed the wires that you told me to test, and just as I was about to test, I noticed my low oil light was on again, and lo and behold, I have power again! so I took it out for a ride and all the electrical works again, honked the horn a few times and it was fine, then on the way back to my house I honked the horn and felt the bike stutter for a bit, and as soon as I got home, no electrical again! now I'm thinking its a loose ground or some thing, but why does it only seem to do this when I honk the horn? I'm gonna dig deeper and let you guys know as soon as possible, Thanks!

horn may have a short.