jeepwm69

Found my old hand impact driver and lo and behold the JIS bits I bought a while back that wouldn't fit in my Milwaukee impact DO fit in the hand impact driver, so I was able to get the remaining 3 JIS bolts out without having to cut/ drill them. I didn't find anything that looked bad at all with the transmission, so spent over an hour scraping gaskets and cleaning the crankcase halves, and will try to get the center cases back together with a new gasket in the morning if I can drag myself out of bed. Still haven't figure out why the thing wouldn't shift. I haven't found anything bent or broken. It's almost like something was bound up a bit and freed up when I took everything apart.

If it's slipping, yes. Could be the Hondamatic, could be the oil pump starving the Hondamatic for oil pressure. Until you can do an oil pressure test you shouldn't keep running it. If your Hondamatic is still ok you might get by replacing the oil pump. If you keep running it with low oil pressure you will destroy the Hondamatic.

A new oil pump might fix the issue if the Hondamatic isn’t bad. My Father in Law’s 06 has 13k hard miles on it and going strong

Gotcha! Looking at the wiring diagram you posted above it did look like a wire Y'ing off the black/red before it went to the ECU, but I don't speak electrical, much less read diagrams!

Negative. Different gear ratios. The only selectable 4wd option for a 300 is a Wide Open 424, which is discontinued. Part number is DS3000. Warn made them originally, then sold the design to Wide Open. Wide Open sold out of them about the time Covid hit and said they didn't think they would be ordering more from their supplier in China due to cost. They were about $330 retail when available. I sold a new one for $800 last week, and sold it quickly. They are in very high demand, and hard to find since they are discontinued.

To clarify, when I measured at the coil, that was with the ECU plugged back in. I think with the ECU unplugged I would get no voltage at the coil, correct? I'll have to double check that after work. And no hurry on the replies Retro. I know you have RLS to do, as do I. I'm troubleshooting this one a bit at a time as time permits.

OK @retro, tell me if my thought process here is correct. 12.7 V at battery now. I’ve had it on a tender. I unplugged the gray connector on the ECU and checked the black/red wire going to ECU. 12.7v then I checked the black red wire at the coil which is supposed to come off of that same black and red wire going into the ECU and got 11.5 V So do I have a bad ECU or do you think of wires burnt somewhere in the middle or ?

Looks like that’s pointing to the ECU again? I’ll try unplugging the ECU tomorrow and see what that nets on the ignition fuse and the stop switch

Well I got 6 of the 9 JIS crankcase screws out. Stripped the other 3, so will have to drill the heads off.🤬

Let us know what you find! Interesting to know RM has a shop!

Also of note, checking voltage in the fuse box. Main 30amp fuse shows 12.24 V. 10A ignition fuse only shows 11.78 V. Possible when that coil shorted to the exhaust that it partially burnt up a wire somewhere in the ignition circuit? Pull the 10a ignition fuse and checked voltage with my volt meter on the hot side. 12.42V. When I plug the fuse back in it drops to like 11.28 V on both sides of the fuse. That will be indicative of a drain somewhere correct?

11.65 v on the black/white wire in the off/on/off switch on the handlebars.

So looking at this again, I had a loose battery connection on the positive battery terminal. Tightened it up. 12.65 V on the battery at rest. 11.02 at the coil. When I crank it drops down to about 9.5v at the coil. Going to clean up grounds, and check voltage at the on off switch now

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/syp-03-023

Some light reading on these Hondamatics.

@Red Good, I see you found the new board. Any luck on the grinding noise? A guy named Brian Betram is the Hondamatic whiz. He's been on the board a few times, but not often. He does however, respond to emails. I'll PM you his email address. He also sells an oil pressure gauge setup on ebay that he cobbles together. About half the price of the Honda gauge and fitting. https://www.ebay.com/itm/144190959908?fits=Make%3AHonda&itmmeta=01HQV19SFJ3J5W3W7YHNC26SAA&hash=item2192737124:g:2x8AAOSwsVFhOA1e&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0MFUNUk%2B2N1WuwFDIFH32xzIA9E0vGIApjJypPlx8dXOSfTLk9nfekZ%2Ba250BWChwHvYBXUAW0PX3slVCXacE7ulaNbc36x8CXLDJX7liohFCTInsSwZUsdWeOEFaf5X1do7Pxxylx5dp0PryD7GCb6uJRWQoX1TGMQ%2BPuJhYGYgZW4C0HPhsnziLtFsGIict7oQF3ffRiq0x0K7sQJQ7p6q84ygZB%2FkGefp3o8WON7uEIRIu7cS6gYgADGrT%2Ba929knIPU6fLdU4f8l3sYLVMI%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR_qXp-G-Yw If your oil is full, your oil pump might be bad. The early Hondamatic oil pumps had known issues. Honda put in an updated oil pump in mid 2004 as best as I can tell, and the newer models don't have anywhere near the problems the early models did. The new oil pump will bolt right in place of the older style. Please let us know what you find out. There isn't a tremendous amount of info on the Hondamatics out there, and I'm trying to get a good bit of reference here to help people with them.

Welcome aboard. We have a few guys here who like the old 350's. @shadetree, @Goober and @DuckOfDeath immediately come to mind.

I have two more of them just like it behind my shop. Paid $100 for one, $50 for the other. They are both beaters that I expect will need a rebuild, but hopefully i can piece two of them together into one working machine for my little girl when she's ready. After messing with a couple of Tao Taos I told my friends name brand stuff only, and to buy older stuff, let their kids ride them, and then sell them for the original purchase price a few years later. Can't beat free usage of kids' toys!

Shaft i was referring to. Will turn several full turns but then locks up. Does the same in either direction. IMG_3010.MOV

Got clutch puller yesterday, so back to work. Symptoms of this one was locked up shifter. Wouldn’t shift up or down. I expected sub transmission problems but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary there, and it still wouldn’t shift with the sub transmission removed. So this morning I got the clutch off and started looking at the shifting mechanism and it appears to shift now…..plan was to split cases and I think I still will given that I’m this far in, but is it possible the shift mechanism was just jammed up? Don’t know if anyone other than @shadetree here has any experience with these. I did notice that when in is what I presume is neutral, this shaft will spin a bit in either direction, but then stops. Wondering if that might be my problem. IMG_3009.MOV

It is my understanding that Rick’s makes a 1st gen CDI that should work 88-92. You should confirm that with Ricks though

Thanks for sharing that. Will have to watch the whole thing later, but love the old "this is how it works" videos!

Rick's are good as well, and usually cheaper than OEM. Just make sure you buy it from Rick's, as there are lots of fake china crap CDI's out there advertised as Rick's. https://ricksmotorsportelectrics.com/Hot-Shot-Series-Honda-CDI-Box-15_605

Wonder if the regulator is shot? That's what I usually see when a battery is being drained anyhow. I'll try measuring for drain, and see what I find. Fuse box looks brand freaking new, no corrosion or signs of heat at all there. I have a good battery I can slap on there. The battery on the machine was low when I picked it up, so it is likely near the end of its useful life.

Coil is hot to the touch after I tried to crank it