Rocket III Help

[boogerdave]

The dealer no longer thinks it is the TPS either. BUT evidently Triumph wants to do their own diagnostic. I was kind of surprised they could do that as well . . . but, Dink says they can. Since it is still an issue I have been dealing with for a couple of years now, I guess Triumph is also picking up the tab. Diagnose away . . . .

 

[Madal]

Hi,

I have also endured some strange going ons with my Rocket which sound very similar to your issue. I replaced. plugs, leads, TPS, half a wiring harness and tinkered with everything else without total success. No codes not a single fault anywhere.
(Crank angle sensor can also get cranky when they get metal shavings on them)

Once I was convinced I had done everything I could, there was nothing left to do but replace the ECU. Issue solved.

Fault: Rockets dont have external ignitors for the coils like many other brands. This signal tells the coil when the fire the plug. In my case I kept loosing a cylinder and when I had all 3 the bike ran pretty much as you describe.
If you have access to another ECU, I would drop that in first before getting into the black art of voltage & Ohms on ignition circuits. You will know immediately of the outcome thats for sure.

Mike

 

[TxRIIIRider]

Thanks Madal.. I have a TPS on the way.. but that makes sense as well because it runs the same no matter what tune I load.

 

[Manic_Mechanic]

I had the tps issue a few years back. I caught it while running pc3 program and saw the tps values jumping all over at about 5% throttle. I already had the secondary plates removed so I just pulled the secondary tps and swapped it out with the primary. That fixed the problem. When the new one arrived I installed it back to the secondary and the ecu reset the trouble code after about 20 miles.
hope this helps.

 

[TxRIIIRider]

tried swapping the secondary TPS to the primary position, but it puts out a totally different voltage value. It didn't work at all.

 

[Manic_Mechanic]

The primary and secondary are identical except for the length of the cable however you have to preload them opposite. If I recall correctly the TPS is spring loaded and keyed. Your ecu may be getting the high signal when it should be getting the low one or vise-versa.

 

[SculptedThought]

The primary and secondary TPS's are not only different in cable length, but resistances as well.
I don't know if the secondary can be adjusted to allow only 1/2 volt at idle position to pass its wiper leg, but I do know their resistors are different.

BTW, a new ECU is over $600 on BikeBandit.

I've seen bad ECU's on cars that had seemingly unsolvable problems. Often times someone was doing arc welding on the car somewhere without disconnecting the battery. This sends voltage spikes into the ECU that screws it up without disabling it.

...just a thought.

 

[TxRIIIRider]

Well... got the Primary TPS installed. It's one of the newer ones with the blue internals. While the bike does respond to this TPS, it still did not solve the problem and the bike still runs like crap. When it first starts, it idles up like normal and then settles into a rough idle and dies. I finally got it to keep running, idling like crap and let it run in hopes that it would smooth out, but alas.. it still runs like crap.

I can only guess it's the ECU anymore.. All the basics are pretty much covered, I don't think it's internal because the bike runs fine at first at high idle.. until is settles into 'normal' idle speed...

I know one thing... I am sick of being at a point where I have to guess...

 

[boogerdave]

I took mine to the dealer and also had the 30,000 mile valve adjustment done. This is the verdict . . .
Throttle cable was a little tight and that prevented the stepper motor from re-setting. They adjusted the cable, reset the motor and adjusted it and did the valves. WOW, what a difference. I had a small miss in the motor and really didnt think much of it. All gone now. Also, the decel popping went away and its back to running like a scalded dog. I had SIX valves out of adjustment . . . all tight.

OH, and . . . Triumph had hooked up via internet. Could find no problem.

 

[TxRIIIRider]

If you look back.. yes my bike has been sitting this long.. lol. Long enough that there are a lot of new people on here since I last rode! I actually do have it running great.. when it rev's, but it still runs like crap at idle and at steady RPMs. I have since loaded the Rocket III base tune 20222, I think.. and re-installed my PC-III with the dyno tune I had done before any problems had started.

I finally had a chance to haul the Rocket up to Austin today. The service guys there were very helpful and seemed very interested in my Rocket and loved how it sounded revving up. They took down what I have done with it so far, and were very receptive of trying to figure out what is going on. I am also going to have them replace the o-rings between the oil tank and engine block, and a few other tidbits while it's there.

Hearing it rev nice for a change at least gives me hope!.. lol

Three good things have come out of this. My tires have lasted well over a year!, my mileage doesn't look as bad as it did last year! (63K+) and I have my Trophy 1200 running after sitting for over 1.5 years with a bad CDI module.. lol