1971 TM 400

captwrk3
Posts
4
Joined
4/29/2022
Location
Spicewood, TX US
Today I brought home a 1971 TM 400. Clean bike with frame upgrades I can see. Looks like 2" or so added to the frame to raise the bike up. I got it to run for about 30 minutes and noticed it pulsating up and down on its own. I took the slide out and found out the needle was on top of the base plate under the spring. Fixed that and got excited and tried to kick start it up. No spark at all. Dead as a door nail. checked all the wiring and can't see anything out of place. I did find the coil wire as it comes out of the coil was rotted and the inner wire was exposed. Tried some electrical tape to insulate it but that didn't fix the issue. Can's understand why it ran and now nothing. I need help finding a coil and a CDI box I guess? Looked for those parts and nothing available. Is there an upgrade for this bike? Any suggestions or parts to be found are greatly appreciated.
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Spergen
Posts
754
Joined
5/16/2011
Location
GB
4/30/2022 2:21pm
I would imagine a coil pack of something mainstream will fit right on, but what I have no idea, does it have any identification on it all all? As for the CDI same again but get it mapped to the bike. Bit different but friend did this with his lambo using 2 fiat 500 cdi's. Ducati is the same as a fiat Panda I believe. Parts like this are sourced externally not made by the manufacturer.
speedman
Posts
235
Joined
9/11/2010
Location
Houston, TX US
5/3/2022 12:02am
That bike is not "raised," someone used a kit to lower the engine and swingarm pivot for a lower CG and better swingarm angle. "Frame kits" were available for a lot of pre-1974 Japanese MX bikes, which tended to have more ground clearance than needed for track use.

The conventional wisdom on the TM400 was that the stock CDI ignition was the primary cause of the bike's legendary evil reputation. Its spark advance was erratic and wholly unpredictable, often failing to advance and causing revs to build slowly so that the rider pinned the throttle, then it would snap instantaneously to max advance and gain 15-20hp all at once, which was Not a Good Thing on a mediocre 1971 chassis when you didn't know the hit was coming.

The stopgap fix was a flywheel weight, but if you put on one heavy enough to tame the unexpected max hit, then the bike revved very slowly the rest of the time. Some did that, others put on a lighter weight and tried to live with the somewhat-tamer hit. The real fix BITD was to fit the TS400 ignition, which IIRC was points w/ trustworthy mechanical advance from '71 to '73. Suzuki improved the '74-75 TM400 CDI, tacitly acknowledged the issue by fixing it, but the TM400 was on the heavy & obsolete side by then.

So probably best to determine which generation CDI is on your bike, and only try to fix it if it's the later-gen one. If it's the first-gen one, replace the whole thing with a healthy TS400 one, or healthy late-gen TM400 one, or an aftermarket CDI.

The key thing with aftermarket CDIs would be ease of starting. Some brands require a fast rotation for a strong enough starting spark, and an ancient big-bore 2T can really hurt you if it kicks back instead of starting. Do some real research on what people are using successfully on TM400s, don't go by what brand people like on their 125 or 250, because starting isn't dangerous on those.

The TM400 probably has provisions to fit a compression release for oval racing or easier starting, so there's that. But the main thing would be to bite the bullet and get a proper ignition in there. Good luck, it ought to yield a decent old bike and the frame kit is a cool period piece. I once almost bought a derelict '71 TM400 with the notion of transplanting the engine to a better frame, but decided it was one project too many.

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